UNIVERSITY  FARM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 


JAVA  HEAD 


THE   WORKS  OF 
'JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 

NOVELS 

THE  LAY  ANTHONY  [1914] 
MOUNTAIN  BLOOD  [1915] 
THE  THREE  BLACK  PENNYS  [191  73 
JAVA  HEAD  11918] 
LINDA  CONDON  [1919] 
CYTHEREA  [1922] 
THE  BRIGHT  SHAWL 


SHORTER  STORIES 

WILD  ORANGES  [1918] 
TUBAL  CAIN  [1918] 
THE  DARK  FLEECE  [1918] 
THE  HAPPY  END  [1919] 

TRAVEL 

SAN  CRISTOBAL  DE  LA  HABANA  [19*0] 


NEfTYORK: -ALFRED  A.  KNOP.ff 


JAVA  HEAD 


BY 
JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 


"It  is  only  the  path  of  pure  simplicity 
which  guards  and  preserves  the  spirit.* 

Chwang'tze 


OWVEKSTTY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

LIBRARY 

BRANCH  OF  THE 
COLLEGE  OF  AGRICULTURE 

NEW  YORK 

ALFRED  <  A *  KNOPF 
1922 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 

First  and  second  printings  before  publication 

Published  January,  1919 

Third  Printing,  January,  1919 

Fourth  Printing,  August,  1919 

Fifth  Printing,  March,  1920 

Sixth  Printing,  November,  1920 

Seventh  Printing,  February,  1922 

Eighth  Printing,  November,  192& 


PRINTED  IN  THB  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


To 
HAZLETON  MIRKIL,  Jr. 

from 
Dorothy 

and 
Jsstph  Hergesheimer 


JAVA  HEAD 


VERY  late  indeed  in  May,  but  early  in  the  morn 
ing,  Laurel  Ammidon  lay  in  bed  considering 
two  widely  different  aspects  of  chairs.  The 
day  before  she  had  been  eleven,  and  the  comparative  ma 
turity  of  that  age  had  filled  her  with  a  moving  disdain 
for  certain  fanciful  thoughts  which  had  given  her  extreme 
youth  a  decidedly  novel  if  not  an  actually  adventurous  set 
ting.  Until  yesterday,  almost,  she  had  regarded  the 
various  chairs  of  the  house  as  beings  endowed  with 
life  and  character;  she  had  held  conversations  with  some, 
and,  with  a  careless  exterior  not  warranted  by  an  inner 
dread,  avoided  others  in  gloomy  dusks.  All  this,  now,  she 
contemptuously  discarded.  Chairs  were  —  chairs,  things 
to  sit  on,  wood  and  stuffed  cushions. 

Yet  she  was  slightly  melancholy  at  losing  such  a  satis 
factory  lot  of  reliable  familiars:  unlike  older  people,  vic 
tims  of  the  most  disconcerting  moods  and  mysterious 
changes,  chairs  could  always  be  counted  on  to  remain 
secure  in  their  individual  peculiarities. 

She  could  see  by  her  fireplace  the  elaborately  carved 
teakwood  chair  that  her  grandfather  had  brought  home 
from  China,  which  had  never  varied  from  the  state  of 
a  brown  and  rather  benevolent  dragon;  its  claws  were 
always  claws,  the  grinning  fretted  mouth  was  perpetually 
fixed  for  a  cloud  of  smoke  and  a  mild  rumble  of  com 
plaint.  The  severe  waxed  hickory  beyond  with  the  broad 

[9] 


JAVA    HEAD 

arm  for  writing,  a  source  of  special  pride,  had  been  an 
accommodating  and  precise  old  gentleman.  The  spindling 
gold  chairs  in  the  drawing-room  were  supercilious  crea 
tures  at  a  king's  ball ;  the  graceful  impressive  formality  of 
the  Heppelwhites  in  the  dining  room  belonged  to  the  love 
liest  of  Boston  ladies.  Those  with  difficult  haircloth 
seats  in  the  parlor  were  deacons;  others  in  the  breakfast 
room  talkative  and  unpretentious;  while  the  deep  easy- 
chair  before  the  library  fire  was  a  ship.  There  were  ma 
hogany  stools,  dwarfs  of  dark  tricks;  angry  high-backed 
things  in  the  hall  below;  and  a  terrifying  shape  of  gleam 
ing  red  that,  without  question,  stirred  hatefully  and 
reached  out  curved  and  dripping  hands. 

Anyhow,  such  they  had  all  seemed.  But  lately  she  had 
felt  a  growing  secrecy  about  it,  an  increasing  dread  of 
being  laughed  at;  and  now,  definitely  eleven,  she  recog 
nized  the  necessity  of  dropping  such  pretense  even  with 
herself.  They  were  just  chairs,  she  repeated;  there  was 
an  end  of  that. 

The  tall  clock  with  the  brass  face  outside  her  door,  after 
a  premonitory  whirring,  loudly  and  firmly  struck  seven, 
and  Laurel  wondered  whether  her  sisters,  in  the  room 
open  from  hers,  were  awake.  She  listened  attentively 
but  there  was  no  sound  of  movement.  She  made  a  noise 
in  her  throat,  that  might  at  once  have  appeared  accidental 
and  been  successful  in  its  purpose  of  arousing  them;  but 
there  was  no  response.  She  would  have  gone  in  and 
frankly  waked  Janet,  who  was  not  yet  thirteen  and  rea 
sonable;  but  experience  had  shown  her  that  Camilla,  re 
posing  in  the  eminence  and  security  of  two  years  more, 
would  permit  no  such  light  freedom  with  her  slumbers. 

[10] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Sidsall,  who  had  been  given  a  big  room  for  herself  on  the 
other  side  of  their  parents,  would  greet  anyone  cheerfully 
no  matter  how  tightly  she  might  have  been  asleep.  And 
Sidsall,  the  oldest  of  them  all,  was  nearly  sixteen  and  had 
stayed  for  part  of  their  cousin  Lucy  Saltonstone's  dance, 
where  no  less  a  person  than  Roger  Brevard  had  asked 
her  for  a  quadrille. 

Laurel's  thoughts  grew  so  active  that  she  was  unable 
to  remain  any  longer  in  bed;  she  freed  herself  from  the 
enveloping  linen  and  crossed  the  room  to  a  wifidow 
through  which  the  sun  was  pouring  in  a  sharp  bright 
angle.  She  had  never  known  the  world  to  smell  so  de 
lightful —  it  was  one  of  the  notable  Mays  in  which  the 
lilacs  blossomed  —  and  she  stood  responding  with  a 
sparkling  life  to  the  brilliant  scented  morning,  the  honey- 
sweet  perfume  of  the  lilacs  mingled  with  the  faintly 
pungent  odor  of  box  wet  with  dew. 

She  could  see,  looking  back  across  a  smooth  green  cor 
ner  of  the  Wibirds'  lawn  next  door,  the  enclosure  of  their 
own  back  yard,  divided  from  the  garden  by  a  white  lattice 
fence  and  row  of  prim  grayish  poplars.  At  the  farther 
wall  her  grandfather,  in  a  wide  palm  leaf  hat,  was  stirring 
about  his  pear  trees,  tapping  the  ground  and  poking  among 
the  branches  with  his  ivory  headed  cane. 

Laurel  exuberantly  performed  her  morning  toilet,  half 
careless,  in  her  soaring  spirits,  of  the  possible  effect  of 
numerous  small  ringings  of  pitcher  on  basin,  the  clatter 
of  drawers,  upon  Camilla.  Yesterday  she  had  worn  a 
dress  of  light  wool  delaine;  but  this  morning,  she  decided 
largely,  summer  had  practically  come;  and,  on  her  own 
authority,  she  got  an  affair  of  thin  pineapple  cloth  out  of 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  yellow  camphorwood  chest.  She  hurriedly  finished 
weaving  her  heavy  chestnut  hair  into  two  gleaming  plaits, 
fastened  a  muslin  guimpe  at  the  back,  and  slipped  into 
her  dress.  Here,  however,  she  twisted  her  face  into  an 
expression  of  annoyance  —  her  years  were  affronted  by 
the  length  of  pantalets  that  hung  below  her  skirt.  Such 
a  show  of  their  narrow  ruffles  might  do  for  a  very  small 
girl,  but  not  for  one  of  eleven;  and  she  caught  them  up 
until  only  the  merest  fulled  edge  was  visible.  Then  she 
made  a  buoyant  descent  to  the  lower  hall,  left  the  house 
by  a  side  door  to  the  bricked  walk  and  an  arched  gate 
into  the  yard,  and  joined  her  grandfather. 

"  Six  bells  in  the  morning  watch,"  he  announced,  con 
sulting  a  thick  gold  timepiece.  "  Head  pump  rigged  and 
deck  swabbed  down?  "  Secure  in  her  knowledge  of  the 
correct  answers  for  these  sudden  interrogations  Laurel  im 
patiently  replied,  "  Yes,  sir." 

"Scuttle  butt  filled?" 

"  Yes,  sir."  She  frowned  and  dug  a  heel  in  the  soft 
ground. 

"  Then  splice  the  keel  and  heave  the  galley  overboard." 

This  last  she  recognized  as  a  sally  of  humor,  and  con 
trived  a  fleeting  perfunctory  smile.  Her  grandfather 
turned  once  more  to  the  pears.  "  See  the  buds  on  those 
Ashton  Towns,"  he  commented.  Laurel  gazed  critically: 
the  varnished  red  buds  were  bursting  with  white  blossom, 
the  new  leaves  unrolling,  tender  green  and  sticky.  "  But 
the  jargonelles — "  he  drew  in  his  lips  doubtfully.  She 
studied  him  with  the  profound  interest  his  sheer  being 
always  invoked:  she  was  absorbed  in  his  surprising  large 
roundness  of  body,  like  an  enormous  pudding;  in  the  de- 

[12] 


JAVA    HEAD 

liberate  care  with  which  he  moved  and  planted  his  feet; 
but  most  of  all  by  the  fact  that  when  he  was  angry  his 
face  got  quite  purple,  the  color  of  her  mother's  paletot  or 
a  Hamburg  grape. 

They  crossed  the  yard  to  where  the  vines  of  the  latter, 
and  of  white  Chasselas  —  Laurel  was  familiar  with  these 
names  from  frequent  horticultural  questionings  —  had 
been  laid  down  in  cold  frames  for  later  transplanting;  and 
from  them  the  old  man,  her  palm  tightly  held  in  his,  trod 
ponderously  to  the  currant  bushes  massed  against  the 
closed  arcade  of  the  stables,  the  wood  and  coal  and  store 
houses,  across  the  rear  of  the  place. 

At  last,  with  frequent  disconcerting  mutterings  and  ex 
plosive  breaths,  he  finished  his  inspection  and  turned  to 
ward  the  house.  Laurel,  conscious  of  her  own  superiority 
of  apparel,  surveyed  her  companion  in  a  frowning  attitude 
exactly  caught  from  her  mother.  He  had  on  that  mussy 
suit  of  yellow  Chinese  silk,  and  there  was  a  spot  on  the 
waistcoat  straining  at  its  pearl  buttons.  She  wondered, 
maintaining  the  silent  mimicry  of  elder  remonstrance,  why 
he  would  wear  those  untidy  old  things  when  his  chests  were 
heaped  with  snowy  white  linen  and  English  broadcloths. 
It  was  very  improper  in  an  Ammidon,  particularly  in  one 
who  had  been  captain  of  so  many  big  ships,  and  in  court 
dress  with  a  cocked  hat  met  the  Emperor  of  Russia. 

They  did  not  retrace  Laurel's  steps,  but  passed  through 
a  narrow  wicket  to  the  garden  that  lay  directly  behind 
the  house.  The  enclosure  was  full  of  robin-song  and 
pouring  sunlight;  the  lilac  trees  on  either  side  of  the  sum 
mer-house  against  the  gallery  of  the  stable  were  blurred 
with  their  new  lavender  flowering;  the  thorned  glossy 

[13] 


JAVA    HEAD 

foliage  of  the  hedge  01  June  roses  on  Briggs  Street  glit 
tered  with  diamonds  of  water;  and  the  rockery  in  the  far 
corner  showed  a  quiver  of  arbutus  among  its  strange  and 
lacy  ferns  and  mosses. 

Laurel  sniffed  the  fragrant  air,  filled  with  a  tumult  of 
energy;  every  instinct  longed  to  skip;  she  thought  of 
jouncing  as  high  as  the  poplars,  right  over  the  house  and 
into  Washington  Square  beyond.  "Miss  Fidget!"  her 
grandfather  exclaimed,  exasperated,  releasing  her  hand. 
"  You're  like  holding  on  to  a  stormy  petrel." 

"  I  don't  think  that's  very  nice,"  she  replied. 

"  God  bless  me,"  he  said,  turning  upon  her  his  steady 
blue  gaze;  "  what  have  we  got  here,  all  dressed  up  to  go 
ashore?  "  She  sharply  elevated  a  shoulder  and  retorted, 
"  Well,  I'm  eleven."  His  look,  which  had  seemed  quite 
fierce,  grew  kindly  again.  "  Eleven,"  he  echoed  with  a 
satisfactory  amazement;  "  that  will  need  some  cumshaws 
and  kisses."  The  first,  she  knew,  was  a  word  of  pleasant 
import,  brought  from  the  East,  and  meant  gifts;  and, 
realizing  that  the  second  was  unavoidably  connected  with 
it,  she  philosophically  held  up  her  face.  Lifting  her  over 
his  expanse  of  stomach  he  kissed  her  loudly.  She  didn't 
object,  really,  or  rather  she  wouldn't  at  all  but  for  a  strong 
odor  of  Manilla  cheroots  and  the  Medford  rum  he  took 
at  stated  periods. 

After  this  they  moved  on,  through  the  bay  window  of 
the  drawing-room  that  opened  on  the  garden,  where  a 
woman  was  brushing  with  a  nodding  feather  duster,  under 
the  white  arch  that  framed  the  main  stairway,  and  turned 
aside  to  where  breakfast  was  being  laid.  Laurel  saw 
that  her  father  was  already  seated  at  the  table,  intent  upon 

[14] 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  tall,  thickly  printed  sheet  of  the  Salem  Register.  He 
paused  to  meet  her  dutiful  lips;  then  with  a  "Good 
morning,  father,"  returned  to  his  reading.  Camilla  en 
tered  at  Laurel's  heels;  and  the  latter,  in  a  delight  slightly 
tempered  by  doubt,  saw  that  she  had  been  before  her  sis 
ter  in  a  suitable  dress  for  such  a  warm  day.  Camilla  still 
wore  her  dark  merino;  and  she  gazed  with  mingled  sur 
prise  and  annoyance  at  Laurel's  airy  garb. 

"  Did  mother  say  you  might  put  that  on?"  she  de 
manded.  "  Because  if  she  didn't  I  expect  you  will  have 
to  go  right  up  from  breakfast  and  change.  It  isn't  a  dress 
at  all  for  so  early  in  the  morning.  Why,  I  believe  it's 
one  of  your  very  best."  The  look  of  critical  disapproval 
suddenly  became  doubly  accusing. 

"  Laurel  Ammidon,  wherever  are  your  pantalets?  " 

"  I'm  too  big  to  have  pantalets  hanging  down  over  my 
shoetops,"  she  replied  defiantly,  "  and  so  I  just  hitched 
them  up.  You  can  still  see  the  frill."  Janet  had  come 
into  the  room,  and  stood  behind  her.  "  Don't  you  notice 
Camilla,"  she  advised;  "she's  not  really  grown  up." 
They  turned  at  the  appearance  of  their  mother.  "  Dear 
me,  Camilla,"  the  latter  observed,  "  you  are  getting  too 
particular  for  any  comfort.  What  has  upset  you  now?  " 

"Look  at  Laurel,"  Camilla  replied;  "that's  all  you 
need  to  do.  You'd  think  she  went  to  dances  instead  of 
Sidsall." 

Laurel  painfully  avoided  her  mother's  comprehensive 
glance.  "  Very  beautiful,"  the  elder  said  in  a  tone  of 
palpable  pleasure.  Laurel  advanced  her  lower  lip  ever 
so  slightly  in  the  direction  of  Camilla.  "  But  you  have 
taken  a  great  deal  into  your  own  hands."  She  shifted 

[15] 


JAVA    HEAD 

apparently  to  another  topic.  "  There  will  be  no  lessons 
to-day  for  I  have  to  send  Miss  Gomes  into  Boston."  At 
this  announcement  Laurel  was  flooded  with  a  joy  that 
obviously  belonged  to  her  former,  less  dignified  state. 
"  However, "  her  mother  continued  addressing  her,  "  since 
you  have  dressed  yourself  like  a  lady  I  shall  expect  you 
to  behave  appropriately;  no  soiled  or  torn  skirts,  and  an 
hour  at  your  piano  scales  instead  of  a  half." 

Laurel's  anticipation  of  pleasure  ebbed  as  quickly  as 
it  had  come  —  she  would  have  to  move  with  the  greatest 
caution  all  day,  and  spend  a  whole  hour  at  the  piano. 
It  was  the  room  to  which  she  objected  rather  than  the 
practicing;  a  depressing  sort  of  place  where  she  was  care 
ful  not  to  move  anything  out  of  the  stiff  and  threatening 
order  in  which  it  belonged.  The  chair-deacons  in  par 
ticular  were  severely  watchful;  but  that,  now,  she  had 
determined  to  ignore. 

She  turned  to  johnnycakes,  honey  and  milk,  only  half 
hearing,  in  her  preoccupation  with  the  injustice  that  had 
overtaken  her,  the  conversation  about  the  table.  Her  gaze 
strayed  over  the  walls  of  the  breakfast  room,  where  water 
color  drawings  of  vessels,  half  models  of  ships  on  teak- 
wood  or  Spanish  mahogany  boards,  filled  every  possible 
space.  Some  her  grandfather  had  sailed  in  as  second 
and  then  first  mate,  of  others  he  had  been  master,  and  the 
rest,  she  knew,  were  owned  by  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and 
Saltonstone,  her  grandfather,  father  and  uncle. 

Just  opposite  her  was  the  Two  Capes  at  anchor  in 
Table  Bay,  the  sails  all  furled  except  the  fore-topsail  which 
hung  in  the  gear.  A  gig  manned  by  six  sailors  in  tar 
paulin  hats  with  an  officer  in  the  stern  sheets  swung  with 

[16] 


JAVA    HEAD 

dripping  oars  across  the  dark  water  of  the  foreground; 
on  the  left  an  inky  ship  was  standing  in  close  hauled 
on  the  port  tack  with  all  her  canvas  set.  It  was  lighter 
about  the  Two  Capes,  and  at  the  back  a  mountain  with  a 
flat  top  —  showing  at  once  why  it  was  called  Table  Bay  — 
rose  against  an  overcast  sky.  Laurel  knew  a  great  deal 
about  the  Two  Capes  —  for  instance  that  she  had  been  a 
barque  of  two  hundred  and  nine  tons  —  because  it  had 
been  her  grandfather's  first  command,  and  he  never  tired 
of  narrating  every  detail  of  that  memorable  voyage. 
"7— Laurel  could  repeat  most  of  these  particulars:  They 
sailed  on  the  tenth  of  April  in  'ninety-three,  and  were 
four  and  a  half  months  to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope;  twenty 
days  later,  on  the  rocky  island  of  St.  Paul,  grandfather 
had  a  fight  with  a  monster  seal;  a  sailor  took  the  scurvy, 
and,  dosed  with  niter  and  vinegar,  was  stowed  in  the 
longboat,  but  he  died  and  was  buried  at  sea  in  the  Dol 
drums.  Then,  with  a  cargo  of  Sumatra  pepper,  they 
made  Corregidor  Island  and  Manilla  Bay  where  the  old 
Spanish  fort  stood  at  the  mouth  of  the  Pasig.  The 
barque,  the  final  cargo  of  hemp  and  indigo  and  sugar  in 
the  hold,  set  sail  again  for  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and 
returned,  by  way  of  Falmouth  in  England  and  Rotterdam, 
home. 

The  other  drawings  were  hardly  less  familiar;  ships, 
barques,  brigs  and  topsail  schooners,  the  skillful  work  of 
Salmon,  Anton  Roux  and  Chinnery.  There  was  the 
Celestina  becalmed  off  Marseilles,  her  sails  hanging  idly 
from  the  yards  and  stays,  her  hull  with  painted  ports 
and  carved  bow  and  stern  mirrored  in  the  level  sea. 
There  was  the  Albacore  running  through  the  northeast 

[17] 


JAVA    HEAD 

trades  with  royals  and  all  her  weather  studding  sails 
set.  Farther  along  the  Pallas  Athena,  in  heavy  weather 
off  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  was  being  driven  hard 
across  the  Agulhas  Bank  under  double-reefed  topsails, 
reefed  courses,  the  fore-topmast  staysail  and  spanker,  with 
the  westerly  current  breaking  in  an  ugly  cross  sea,  but, 
as  her  grandfather  always  explained,  setting  the  ship 
thirty  or  forty  miles  to  windward  in  a  day.  She  lingered, 
finally,  over  the  Metacom,  running  her  easting  down  far  to 
the  southward  with  square  yards  under  a  close-reefed 
maintopsail,  double-reefed  foresail  and  forestaysail,  dead 
before  a  gale  and  gigantic  long  seas  hurling  the  ship  on 
in  the  bleak  watery  desolation. 

Laurel  was  closely  concerned  in  all  these.  One  cause 
for  this  was  the  fact  that  her  grandfather  so  often  selected 
her  as  the  audience  for  his  memories  and  stories,  during 
which  his  manner  was  completely  that  of  one  navigator 
to  another;  and  a  second  flourished  in  the  knowledge  that 
Camilla  affected  to  disdain  the  sea  and  any  of  its  con 
nections. 

Sidsall  appeared  and  took  her  place  with  a  collective 
greeting;  while  Laurel,  coming  out  of  her  abstraction, 
realized  that  they  were  discussing  the  subject  in  which 
nearly  every  conversation  now  began  or  ended  —  the 
solemn  speculation  of  why  her  Uncle  Gerrit  Ammidon, 
master  of  the  ship  Nautilus,  was  so  long  overdue  from 
China.  Laurel  heard  this  from  two  angles,  or,  otherwise, 
when  her  grandfather  was  or  was  not  present,  the  tone  of 
the  first  far  more  encouraging  than  that  of  the  latter. 
Her  father  was  speaking: 

"  My  opinion  is  that  he  was  unexpectedly  held  up  at 
[18] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Shanghai.  It's  a  new  port  for  us,  and,  Captain  Verney 
tells  me,  very  difficult  to  make:  after  Woosung  you  have 
to  get  hold  of  two  bamboo  poles  stuck  up  on  the  bank  a 
hundred  feet  apart  as  a  leading  mark,  and,  with  these  in 
range,  steer  for  the  bar.  The  channel  is  very  narrow, 
and  he  says  the  Nautilus  would  have  to  wait  for  high 
water,  perhaps  for  the  spring  tide.  She  may  have  got 
ashore,  strained  and  sprung  a  leak,  and  had  to  discharge 
her  cargo  for  repairs." 

"  That's  never  Gerrit,"  the  elder  replied  positively. 
"  There  isn't  a  better  master  afloat.  He  can  smell  shoal 
water.  I  was  certain  we'd  hear  from  him  when  the 
*  Sorsogon  was  back  from  Calcutta.  Do  you  suppose, 
William,  that  he  took  the  Nautilus  about  the  Horn 
and  —  ?"  Laurel  wondered  at  the  unmannerly  way  in 
which  he  gulped  his  coffee.  "  He  might  have  driven  into 
the  Antarctic  winter,"  he  proceeded.  "  My  deck  was 
swept  and  all  the  boats  stove  off  the  Falklands  in  April." 

"  Gerrit's  got  a  ship,"  the  other  asserted,  "  not  a  her 
maphrodite  brig  built  like  a  butter  box.  You'll  find  that 
I  am  right  and  that  he  has  been  tied  up  in  port." 

"  I  made  eight  hundred  per  cent  on  a  first  cargo  for  my 
owners,"  the  elder  retorted.  "  Then  there  was  trading, 
yes,. and  sailing,  too.  No  chronometers  with  confounded 
rates  of  variation  and  other  fancy  parlor  instruments 
to  read  your  position  from.  When  I  first  navigated  it 
was  with  an  astrolabe  and  the  moon.  A  master  knew 
his  lead,  latitude  and  lookout  then. 

"  Eight  hundred  barrels  of  flour  and  pine  boards  to 
Rio  and  back  with  coffee  and  hides  for  Salem,"  he  con 
tinued  ;  "  then  out  to  Gibraltar  and  Brazil  with  wine  and 

[19] 


JAVA    HEAD 

on  in  ballast  for  Calcutta.  Tahiti  and  Morea,  the  Sand 
wich  Islands  and  the  Feejees.  Sandalwood  and  tortoise 
shell  and  beche  de  mer;  sea  horses'  teeth,  and  saltpeter 
for  the  Chinese  Government.  I  don't  want  to  hear  about 
your  bills  of  exchange  and  kegs  of  Spanish  dollars  and 
solid  cargoes  of  tea  run  back  direct.  Why,  with  your 
Canton  and  India  agents  and  sight  drafts  the  China  service 
is  like  dealing  with  a  Boston  store." 

Laurel  saw  that  her  father  was  assuming  the  expres 
sion  of  restrained  annoyance  habitual  when  the  elder  con 
trasted  old  shipping  ways  with  new.  "  Unfortunately," 
he  said,  "  the  patient  Chinaman  will  no  longer  exchange 
silks  and  lacquer  and  teas  for  boiled  sea  slugs.  He  has 
learned  to  demand  something  of  value." 

"  Why,  damn  it,  William,"  the  other  exploded,  "  noth 
ing's  more  valuable  to  a  Chinese  than  his  belly.  They'll 
give  eighteen  hundred  dollars  a  pecul  for  birds'  nests  any 
day.  As  for  your  insinuation  that  we  used  to  diddle 
them  —  I  never  ran  opium  up  from  India  to  rot  their 
souls.  And  when  the  Chinese  Government  tried  to  stop 
it  there's  the  British  commercial  interests  forcing  it  on 
them  with  cannon  in  'forty-two. 

"  Look  at  the  pepper  we  brought  into  Salem  — "  he  was, 
Laurel  realized  with  intense  interest,  growing  beautifully 
empurpled;  " — lay  right  off  the  beach  at  Mukka  and  did 
business  with  the  Dato  himself.  We  forded  the  bags  on 
the  crew's  backs  across  a  river  with  muskets  served  in  case 
the  bloody  heathen  drew  their  creeses.  When  we  made  sail 
everything  was  running  over  with  pepper  —  the  boats  and 
forecastle  and  cabins  and  between  decks." 

[20] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Well,  father,  the  heroic  times  are  done,  of  course;  I 
can't  say  that  I'm  sorry.  I  shouldn't  like  to  finance  a 
voyage  that  reached  out  to  three  years  and  depended  on 
the  captain's  picking  up  six  or  seven  cargoes." 

The  old  man  rose;  and,  muttering  a  plainly  uncompli 
mentary  period  about  the  resemblance  of  modern  ship 
owners  to  clerks,  walked  with  his  heavy  careful  tread 
from  the  room. 

"  You  are  so  foolish  to  argue  and  excite  him,"  Wil 
liam's  wife  told  him. 

Laurel  regarded  her  with  a  passionate  admiration  for 
the  shining  hair  turning  smoothly  about  her  brow  and 
drawn  over  her  ears  to  the  low  coil  in  the  back,  for  her 
brown  barege  dress  with  velvet  leaves  and  blue  forget- 
me-nots  and  tightest  of  long  sleeves  and  high  collar,  and 
because  generally  she  was  a  mother  to  be  owned  and 
viewed  with  pride.  She  met  Laurel's  gaze  with  a  little 
friendly  nod  and  said: 

"  Don't  forget  about  your  clothes,  and  I  think  you  ought 
to  finish  the  practicing  before  dinner,  so  you'll  be  free  for 
a  walk  with  your  grandfather  in  the  afternoon." 

Soon  after,  Laurel  stood  in  the  hall  viewing  with  dis 
favor  the  light  dress  she  had  put  on  so  gayly  at  rising. 
In  spite  of  her  sense  of  increasing  age  she  had  a  strong 
desire  to  play  in  the  yard  and  climb  about  in  the  wood- 
house.  Already  the  business  of  being  grown  up  began  to 
pall  upon  her,  the  outlook  dreary  that  included  nothing 
but  a  whole  hour  at  the  piano,  an  endless  care  of  her 
skirts,  and  the  slowest  kind  of  walk  through  Washington 
Square  and  down  to  Derby  Wharf,  where  —  no  matter  in 

[21] 


JAVA    HEAD 

which  direction  and.  lor  what  purpose  they  started  forth 
—  her  grandfather's  way  invariably  led. 

Janet  joined  her,  and  they  stood  irresolutely  balancing 
on  alternate  slippers.  "  Did  you  notice,"  the  former 
volunteered,  "  mother  is  letting  Camilla  have  lots  of  starch 
in  her  petticoats,  so  that  they  stand  right  out  like  crino 
line?  Wasn't  she  hateful  this  morning!  "  Laurel  heard 
a  slight  sound  at  her  back,  and,  wheeling,  saw  her  grand 
father  looking  out  from  the  library  door.  A  swift 
premonition  of  possible  additional  misfortune  seized  her. 
Moving  toward  the  side  entrance  she  said  to  Janet, 
"  We'd  better  be  going  right  away." 

It  was,  however,  too  late.  "  Well,  little  girls,"  he  re 
marked  benevolently,  "  since  Miss  Gomes  has  left  for  the 
day  it  would  be  as  well  if  I  heard  your  geography  lesson." 

"  I  don't  think  mother  intended  for  us  to  study  to-day," 
Laurel  replied,  making  a  face  of  appeal  for  Janet's  sup 
port.  But  the  latter  remained  solidly  and  silently  neutral. 

"What,  what,"  the  elder  mildly  exploded;  "mutiny  in 
the  forecastle!  Get  right  up  here  in  the  break  of  the 
quarter-deck  or  I'll  harry  you."  He  stood  aside  while 
Laurel  and  Janet  filed  into  the  library.  Geography  was 
the  only  subject  their  grandfather  proposed  for  his  in 
struction,  and  the  lesson,  she  knew,  might  take  any  one 
of  several  directions.  He  sometimes  heard  it  with  the 
precision  of  Miss  Gomes  herself;  he  might  substitute 
for  the  regular  questions  such  queries,  drawn  from  his 
wide  voyages,  as  he  thought  to  be  of  infinitely  greater  use 
and  interest;  or,  better  still,  he  frequently  gave  them  the 
benefit  of  long  reminiscences,  through  which  they  sat 
blinking  in  a  mechanical  attention  or  slightly  wriggling 

[22] 


JAVA    HEAD 

with  minds  far  away  from  the  old  man's  periods,  full  of 
outlandish  names  and  places,  and,  when  he  got  excited, 
shocking  swears. 

He  turned  the  easy-chair  —  the  one  which  Laurel  had 
thought  of  as  a  ship  —  away  from  the  fireplace,  now  cov 
ered  with  a  green  slatted  blind  for  the  summer;  and  they 
drew  forward  two  of  the  heavy  chairs  with  shining  claw 
feet  that  stood  against  the  wall.  Smiley's  Geography,  a 
book  no  larger  than  the  shipmaster's  hand,  was  found  and 
opened  to  Hindoostan,  or  India  within  the  Ganges.  There 
was  a  dark  surprising  picture  of  Hindoos  doing  Penance 
under  the  Banyan  tree,  and  a  confusing  view  of  the 
Himaleh  Mountains. 

"  Stuff,"  he  proceeded,  gazing  with  disfavor  at  the 
illustrations.  "  This  ought  to  be  written  by  men  who 
have  seen  the  world  and  know  its  tides  and  landmarks. 
Do  you  suppose,"  he  demanded  heatedly  of  Janet,  "  that 
the  fellow  who  put  this  together  ever  took  a  ship  through 
the  Formosa  Channel  against  the  northeast  monsoon?  " 

"  No,  sir,"  Janet  replied  hastily. 

"  Here  are  Climate  and  Face  of  the  country  and  Re 
ligion,"  he  located  these  items  with  a  blunt  finger,  "  but  I 
can't  find  exports.  I'll  lay  he  won't  know  a  Bengal  chintz 
from  a  bundle  handkerchief." 

"  I  don't  think  it  says  anything  about  exports,"  Laurel 
volunteered.  "  We  have  the  boundaries  and  — " 

"  Bilge,"  he  interrupted  sharply.  "  I  didn't  fetch 
boundaries  back  in  the  Two  Capes,  did  I  ?  "  He  thrust 
the  offending  volume  into  a  crevice  of  his  chair. 
"  Laurel,"  he  added,  "  what  is  the  outport  of  St.  Peters 
burg?" 

[23] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Cronstadt,"  she  answered,  after  a  violent  searching  of 
her  memory. 

"  And  for  Manilla?  "  he  turned  to  Janet. 

"  I  can't  think,"  she  admitted. 

"  Laurel?" 

"  Cavite,"  the  latter  pronounced  out  of  a  racking  men 
tal  effort. 

"Just  so,  and  — "  he  looked  up  at  the  ceiling,  "  the 
port  for  Boston?  " 

"  I  don't  believe  we've  had  that,"  she  said  firmly.  His 
gaze  fastened  on  her  so  intently  that  she  blushed  into  her 
lap.  "  Don't  believe  we've  had  it,"  he  echoed.  "  Why, 
confound  it — "  he  paused  and  regarded  her  with  a  new 
doubt.  "  Laurel,"  he  demanded,  "  what  is  an  outport?  " 

She  had  a  distinct  feeling  of  justifiable  injury.  A 
recognized  part  of  the  present  system  of  examination  was 
its  strict  limitation  to  questions  made  familiar  by  con 
stant  repetition;  and  this  last  was  entirely  new.  She  was 
sure  of  several  kinds  of  ports  —  one  they  had  after 
dinner,  another  indicated  a  certain  side  of  a  vessel,  and 
still  a  third  was  Salem.  But  an  outport  —  Cronstadt, 
Cavite,  what  it  really  meant,  what  they  were,  had  escaped 
her.  She  decided  to  risk  an  opinion. 

"  An  outport,"  she  said  slowly,  "is  a  —  a  part  of  a 
ship,"  that  much  seemed  safe  — "  I  expect  it's  the  place 
where  they  throw  things  like  potato  peels  through." 

"  You  suppose  what!  "  he  cried,  breathing  quite  hard. 
"  A  place  where  they  — "  he  broke  off.  "  And  you're 
Jeremy  Ammidon's  granddaughter!  By  heaven,  it  would 
make  a  coolie  laugh.  It's  like  William,  who  never  would 
go  to  sea,  to  have  four  daughters  in  place  of  a  son.  I'm 

[24] 


JAVA    HEAD 

done  with  you;  go  tinker  on  the  piano."  They  got  down 
from  their  chairs  and  departed  with  an  only  half  con 
cealed  eagerness.  "  Do  you  think  he  means  it,"  Janet 
asked  hopefully,  "  and  he'll  never  have  any  geography 
again?" 

"  No,  I  don't,"  Laurel  told  her  shortly.  She  was  in 
wardly  ruffled,  and  further  annoyed  at  Janet's  placid 
acceptance  of  whatever  the  day  brought  along.  Janet  was 
a  stick!  She  turned  away  and  found  herself  facing  the 
parlor  and  the  memory  of  the  impending  hour  of  prac 
tice.  Well,  it  had  to  be  done  before  dinner,  and  she  went 
forward  with  dragging  feet. 

Within  the  formal  shaded  space  of  the  chamber  she 
stopped  to  speculate  on  the  varied  and  colorful  pictures 
of  the  wall  paper  reaching  from  the  white  paneling  above 
her  waist  to  the  deep  white  carving  at  the  ceiling.  The 
scene  which  absorbed  her  most  showed,  elevated  above  a 
smooth  stream,  a  marble  pavilion  with  sweeping  steps  and 
a  polite  company  about  a  reclining  gentleman  with  bare 
arms  and  a  wreath  on  his  head  and  a  lady  in  flowing  robes 
playing  pipes.  To  the  right,  in  deep  green  shadow,  a 
charmer  was  swinging  from  ropes  of  flowers,  lovers  hid  be 
hind  a  brown  mossy  trunk;  while  on  the  left,  against  a 
weeping  willow  and  frowning  rock,  four  serene  creatures 
gathered  about  a  barge  with  a  gilded  prow. 

Still  on  her  reluctant  progress  to  the  piano  she  stopped 
to  examine  the  East  India  money  on  the  lowest  shelf  of  a 
locked  corner  cupboard.  There  was  a  tiresome  string  of 
cash  with  a  rattan  twisted  through  their  square  holes; 
silver  customs  taels,  and  mace  and  candareen;  Chinese 
gold  leaf  and  Fukien  dollars;  coins  from  Cochin  China 

[25] 


JAVA    HEAD 

in  the  shape  of  India  ink,  with  raised  edges  and  charac 
ters;  old  Carolus  hooked  dollars;  Sycee  silver  ingots, 
smooth  and  flat  above,  but  roughly  oval  on  the  lower  sur 
face,  not  unlike  shoes;  Japanese  obangs,  their  gold  stamped 
and  beaten  out  almost  as  broad  as  a  hand's  palm;  mo- 
hurs  and  pieces  from  Singapore;  Dutch  guilders  from 
Java;  and  the  small  silver  and  gold  drops  of  Siam  called 
tical. 

She  arrived  finally  at  the  harplike  stool  of  the  piano; 
but  there  she  had  to  wait  until  the  clock  in  the  hall  above 
struck  some  division  of  the  hour  for  her  guidance,  and 
she  rattled  the  brass  rings  that  formed  the  handles  of 
drawers  on  either  side  of  the  keyboard.  Later,  her  fingers 
picking  a  precarious  way  through  bass  and  treble,  she 
heard  Sidsall's  voice  at  the  door;  the  latter  was  joined  by 
their  mother,  and  they  went  out  to  the  clatter  of  hoofs,  the 
thin  jingle  of  harness  chains,  where  the  barouche  waited 
for  them  in  the  street.  Once  Camilla  obtruded  into  the 
room.  "  I  wonder  you  don't  give  yourself  a  headache," 
she  remarked;  "  I  never  heard  more  nerve-racking 
sounds." 

Laurel  gathered  that  Camilla  was  proud  of  this  ex 
pression,  which  she  must  have  newly  caught  from  some 
grown  person.  She  considered  a  reply,  but,  nothing  suf 
ficiently  crushing  occurring,  she  ignored  the  other  in  a 
difficult  transposition  of  her  hands.  Camilla  left;  the 
clock  above  struck  a  second  quarter;  the  third,  while  she 
honestly  continued  her  efforts  up  until  the  first  actual  note 
of  the  hour. 

"  Thank  God  that's  over,"  she  said  in  the  liberal  man 
ner  of  a  shipmaster.  Now  only  the  walk  with  her  grand- 

[26] 


JAVA    HEAD 

father  remained  of  the  actively  tiresome  duties  of  the 
day.  After  dinner  the  sun  blazed  down  with  almost  the 
heat  of  midsummer,  and  Laurel  felt  unexpectedly  indiffer 
ent,  content  to  linger  in  the  house.  Only  too  soon  she 
heard  inquiries  for  her;  and  in  her  gaiter  boots,  a  silk 
bonnet  with  a  blue  scarf  tied  under  her  chin  and  flowing 
over  a  shoulder  and  palm  leaf  cashmere  shawl,  she  ac 
companied  the  old  man  across  Pleasant  Street  and  over 
the  wide  green  Square  to  the  arched  west  gate  with  its 
gilt  eagle  and  Essex  Street. 

"  Will  we  be  going  on  Central  Street?  "  she  asked. 

"  No  reason  for  turning  down  there,"  he  replied,  forget 
ful  of  the  gingerbread  shop  with  the  shaky  little  bell  inside 
the  door,  the  buttered  gingerbread  on  the  upper  shelf  for 
three  cents  and  that  without  on  the  lower  for  two.  She 
gathered  her  hopes  now  about  Webb's  Drugstore,  where 
her  grandfather  sometimes  stopped  for  a  talk,  and  bought 
her  rock  candy,  Gibraltars  or  blackjacks.  It  was  too 
hot  for  blackjacks,  she  decided,  and,  with  opportunity, 
would  choose  the  cooling  peppermint  flavor  of  the 
Gibraltars. 

The  elms  on  Essex  Street  were  far  enough  in  leaf  to  cast 
a  flickering  shade  in  the  faintly  salt  air  drifting  from 
the  sea;  and  they  progressed  so  slowly  that  Laurel  was 
able  to  study  the  contents  of  most  of  the  store  windows  they 
passed.  Some  held  crewels  and  crimped  white  cakes  of 
wax,  gayly  colored  reticule  beads  with  a  wooden  spoon  for 
a  penny  measure,  and  "  strawberry  "  emery  balls.  There 
was  a  West  India  store  and  a  place  where  they  sold  oil 
and  candles,  another  had  charts  for  mariners;  while 
across  the  way  stood  the  East  India  Marine  Hall. 

[27] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Here  her  grandfather  hesitated,  and  for  a  moment  it 
seemed  as  if  he  would  go  over  and  join  the  masters  always 
to  be  found  about  the  Museum.  But  in  the  end  he  con 
tinued  beyond  the  Essex  House  with  its  iron  bow  and  lamp 
over  the  entrance,  past  Cheapside  to  Webb's  Drugstore, 
where  he  purchased  a  bag  of  Peristaltic  lozenges,  and  — 
after  pretending  to  start  away  as  if  nothing  more  were  to 
be  secured  there  —  the  Gibraltars. 

They  were  returning,  in  the  general  direction  of  Derby 
Wharf,  when  Jeremy  Ammidon  met  a  companion  of  past 
days  at  sea,  and  stopped  for  the  inevitable  conversational 
exchange.  The  latter,  who  had  such  a  great  spreading 
beard  that  Laurel  couldn't  determine  whether  or  not  he 
wore  a  neck  scarf,  said: 

"  Barzil  Dunsack  all  but  died." 

"  Ha !  "  the  other  exclaimed.  Laurel  wondered  at  the 
indelicacy  in  speaking  about  old  Captain  Dunsack  to  her 
grandfather,  when  everyone  in  Salem  knew  they  had 
quarreled  years  ago  and  not  spoken  to  each  other  since. 

"He  was  bad  off,"  he  persisted;  "a  cold  grappled  in 
his  chest  and  went  into  lung  fever.  Barzil's  looking 
wasted,  what  with  sickness  and  the  trouble  about  Ed 
ward."  At  a  nod,  half  encouraging,  he  added,  "  It  ap 
pears  Edward  left  Heard  and  Company  in  Canton  and 
took  ship  back  to  Boston.  He's  there  now  for  what  I 
know.  Never  sent  any  word  to  Salem  or  his  father. 
Looks  a  little  as  if  he  had  been  turned  out  of  his  berth. 
Then  one  of  Barzil's  schooners  caught  the  edge  of  the  last 
hurricane  off  the  Great  Bank  and  went  ashore  on  Green 
Turtle  Key.  Used  him  near  all  up." 

Laurel  saw  that  her  grandfather  was  frowning  heavily 
[28] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  silently  moving  his  lips.  The  other  left  them 
standing  and  her  companion  brought  his  cane  down 
sharply.  "  Boy  and  boy,"  he  said.  "  Barzil  was  a  good 
man  .  .  .  looking  old.  So  am  I,  so  am  I.  Feet  al 
most  useless.  Laurel,"  he  addressed  her,  "  I  want  you 
to  go  right  on  home.  I've  got  to  stop  around  and  see 
an  old  friend  who  has  been  sick."  She  left  obediently, 
but  paused  once  to  gaze  back  incredulously  at  the  bulky 
shape  of  her  grandfather  moving  toward  Barzil  Dunsack's. 
That  quarrel  was  part  of  their  family  history,  she  had 
been  aware  of  it  as  long  as  she  had  of  the  solemn  clock  in 
the  second  hall;  and  not  very  far  back,  perhaps  when 
she  was  eight,  it  had  taken  a  fresh  activity  of  discussion 
around  the  person  of  her  Uncle  Gerrit,  who,  it  was  feared, 
might  now  be  drowned  at  sea.  What  it  had  all  been  about 
neither  she  nor  her  sisters  knew,  for  not  only  was  the  sub 
ject  dropped  at  the  approach  of  any  of  them  but  they  were 
forbidden  to  mention  it. 

At  home  she  was  unable  to  communicate  her  surpris 
ing  news  at  once  because  of  the  flood  of  talk  that  met  her 
from  the  drawing-room.  Olive  Wibird  and  Lacy,  her 
cousin,  were  engaged  with  Sidsall  in  a  conversation  often 
a  duet  and  sometimes  a  trio.  Laurel  took  a  seat  at  the 
edge  of  the  chatter  and  followed  it  comprehensively.  She 
didn't  like  Olive  Wibird  who  would  greet  her  in  a  sugary 
voice;  but  elsewhere  Olive  was  tremendously  admired, 
there  were  always  men  about  her,  serenades  rising  from 
the  lawn  beneath  her  window,  and  Laurel  herself  had 
seen  Olive's  dressing  table  laden  with  bouquets  in  frilly 
lace  paper.  She  had  one  now,  in  a  holder  of  mother-of- 
pearl,  with  a  gilt  chain  and  ring.  Her  wide  skirt  was  a 

[29] 


JAVA    HEAD 

mass  of  overdrapery,  knots  of  moss  roses  and  green  gauze 
ribbons;  while  a  silver  cord  ending  in  a  tassel  fell  for 
ward  among  her  curls. 

Lacy  Saltonstone,  almost  as  plainly  dressed  as  Sidsall, 
was  as  usual  sitting  straighter  than  anyone  else  Laurel 
ever  saw;  she  had  a  brown  face  with  a  finely  curved  nose 
and  brown  eyes,  and  her  voice  was  cool  and  decided. 

"  For  me,"  she  said,  "  he  is  the  most  fascinating  person 
in  Salem." 

Olive  Wibird  made  a  swift  face  of  dissent,  "  He's  too 
stiff  and  there  is  gray  in  his  hair.  I  like  my  men  more 
like  sparkling  hock.  Dancing  with  him  he  holds  you  as 
if  you  were  glass." 

"  I  don't  seem  to  remember  you  and  Mr.  Brevard  to 
gether,"  Lacy  commented. 

"  He  hasn't  asked  me  for  centuries,"  the  other  admitted. 
"  He  did  Sidsall,  though,  as  we  all  remember;  didn't  he, 
love?" 

Sidsall's  cheeks  turned  bright  pink.  Laurel  dispas 
sionately  wished  that  her  sister  wouldn't  make  such  a 
show  of  herself.  It  was  too  bad  that  Sidsall  was  so  — 
so  broad  and  well  looking ;  she  was  not  in  the  least  pale  or 
interesting,  and  had  neither  Lacy's  Saltonstone's  thin 
gracefulness  nor  Olive's  popular  manner. 

"  It  was  very  noble  of  him,"  Sidsall  agreed. 

"  But  he  was  extremely  engaged,"  Lacy  assured  her 
with  her  wide  slow  stare.  "  He  told  me  that  you  were 
like  apple  blossoms." 

That  might  please  Sidsall,  thought  Laurel,  but  she 
personally  held  apple  blossoms  to  be  a  very  common  sort 
of  flower.  Evidently  something  of  the  kind  had  occurred 

[30] 


JAVA    HEAD 

to  Olive,  too,  for  she  said :  "  Heaven  only  knows  what 
men  will  admire.  It's  clear  they  don't  like  a  prude.  I 
intend  to  have  a  good  time  until  I  get  married  — " 

"  But  what  if  you  love  in  vain?  "  Sidsall  interrupted. 

"  There  isn't  any  need  for  that,"  Olive  told  her. 
"  When  I  see  a  man  I  want  I'm  going  to  get  him.  It's 
easy  if  you  know  how  and  make  opportunities.  I  always 
have  one  garter  a  little  loose." 

"  Laurel,"  her  sister  turned,  "  I'm  certain  your  supper 
is  ready.  Go  along  like  a  nice  child." 

In  her  room  a  woman  with  a  flat  worn  face  and  a  dusty 
wisp  of  hair  across  her  neck  was  spreading  underlinen, 
ironed  into  beautiful  narrow  wisps  of  pleating,  in  a 
drawer.  It  was  Hodie,  a  Methodist,  the  only  one  Laurel 
knew,  and  the  latter  was  always  entranced  by  the  servant's 
religious  exclamations,  doubts  and  audible  prayers.  She 
was  saying  something  now  about  pits,  gauds  and  vanities; 
and  she  ended  a  short  profession  of  faith  with  an  amen  so 
loud  and  sudden  that  Laurel,  although  she  was  waiting  for 
it,  jumped. 

It  was  past  seven,  the  air  was  so  sweet  with  lilacs  that 
they  seemed  to  be  blooming  in  her  room,  and  the  sunlight 
died  slowly  from  still  space.  By  leaning  out  of  her 
window  she  could  see  over  the  Square.  The  lamplighter 
was  moving  along  its  wooden  fence,  leaving  faint  twink 
ling  yellow  lights,  and  there  were  little  gleams  from  the 
windows  on  Bath  Street  beyond. 

The  gayety  of  her  morning  mood  was  replaced  by  a 
dim  kind  of  wondering,  her  thoughts-  became  uncertain  like 
the  objects  in  the  quivering  light  outside.  The  palest  pos 
sible  star  shone  in  the  yellow  sky;  she  had  to  look  hard  or 

[31] 


JAVA    HEAD 

it  was  lost.  Janet,  stirring  in  the  next  room,  seemed  so 
far  away  that  she  might  not  hear  her,  Laurel,  no  matter 
how  loudly  she  called.  "  Janet!  "  she  cried,  prompted  by 
unreasoning  dread.  "  You  needn't  to  yell,"  Janet  com 
plained,  at  the  door.  But  already  Laurel  was  oblivious  of 
her:  she  had  seen  a  familiar  figure  slowly  crossing  Wash 
ington  Square  —  her  grandfather  coming  home  from 
Captain  Dunsack's. 

Gracious,  how  poky  he  was;  she  was  glad  that  she 
wasn't  dragging  along  at  his  side.  He  seemed  bigger  and 
rounder  than  usual.  She  heard  the  tap  of  his  cane  as  he 
left  the  Common  for  Pleasant  Street;  then  his  feet  moved 
and  stopped,  moved  and  stopped,  up  the  steps  of  their 
house. 

She  was  sorry  now  that  she  hadn't  known  what  an  out- 
port  was,  and  determined  to  ask  him  to-morrow.  She 
liked  his  stories,  that  Camilla  disdained,  about  crews  and 
Hong  Kong  and  the  stormy  Cape.  The  thought  of  Cape 
Horn  brought  back  the  memory  of  her  Uncle  Gerrit,  ab 
sent  in  the  ship  Nautilus.  Her  mental  pictures  of  him 
were  not  clear  —  he  was  almost  always  at  sea  —  but  she 
remembered  his  eyes,  which  were  very  confusing  to  en 
counter,  and  his  hair  parted  and  carelessly  brushing  the 
bottoms  of  his  ears. 

Laurel  recalled  hearing  that  Gerrit  was  his  father's 
favorite,  and  she  suddenly  understood  something  of  the 
unhappiness  that  weighed  upon  the  old  man.  She  hoped 
desperately  that  Janet  or  Camilla  wouldn't  come  in  and 
laugh  at  her  for  crying.  In  bed  she  saw  that  the  room 
was  rapidly  filling  with  dusk.  Only  yesterday  she  would 
have  told  herself  that  the  dragon  in  the  teakwood  chair 

[32] 


JAVA    HEAD 

was  stirring;  but  now  Laurel  could  see  that  it  never 
moved.  She  rocked  like  the  little  boats  that  crossed  the 
harbor  or  came  in  from  the  ships  anchored  beyond  the 
wharves,  and  settled  into  a  sleep  like  a  great  placid  sea 
flooding  the  world  of  her  home  and  the  lamplighter  and 
her  grandfather  sorrowing  for  Uncle  Gerrit. 


[33] 


II 

WHEN  Jeremy  Ammidon  sent  his  granddaugh 
ter  home  alone,  and  turned  toward  Captain 
Dunsack's,  on  Hardy  Street,  he  stopped  for  a 
moment  to  approve  the  diminishing  sturdy  figure.  All 
William's  children,  though  they  were  girls,  were  remark 
ably  handsome,  with  glowing  red  cheeks  and  clear  eyes, 
tumbling  masses  of  hair  and  a  generous  vigor  of  body. 
He  sighed  at  Laurel's  superabundant  youth,  and  moved 
carefully  forward;  he  was  very  heavy,  and  his  progress 
was  uncertain.  His  thoughts  were  divided  between  the 
present  and  the  past  —  Barzil  Dunsack,  aged  and  ill  and 
unfortunate,  and  the  happening  long  ago  that  had  resulted 
in  a  separation  of  years  after  a  close  youthful  companion 
ship. 

It  had  occurred  while  Barzil  was  master  of  the  brig 
Luna,  owned  by  Billy  Gray,  and  he,  Jeremy,  was  first 
mate.  In  the  exactness  with  which  he  recalled  every  de 
tail  of  his  life  in  ships  he  remembered  that  at  the  time 
they  were  off  Bourbon  Island,  about  a  hundred  and  ten 
miles  southwest  of  the  lie  de  France.  The  Luna  was  close 
hauled,  and,  while  Barzil  was  giving  an  order  at  the  wheel, 
she  fetched  a  bad  lee  lurch  and  sent  him  in  a  heap  across 
the  deck,  striking  his  head  against  the  bumkin  bitts.  He 
had  got  up  dazed  but  not  apparently  seriously  injured; 
and  after  his  head  had  been  swabbed  and  bound  by  the 
steward  he  returned  to  the  poop.  There,  however,  his 

[34] 


JAVA    HEAD 

conduct  had  been  so  peculiar  —  among  other  things  send 
ing  down  the  watch  to  put  on  Sunday  rig  against  a  pos 
sible  hail  by  the  Lord  —  that,  after  a  long  consultation 
with  Mr.  Patterson,  the  second  mate  and  the  boatswain, 
and  a  brief  announcement  to  the  crew,  he,  Jeremy  Ammi- 
don,  had  taken  command  in  their  interest  and  that  of  the 
owner. 

Barzil  had  made  difficulties:  Mr.  Patterson  struck  up 
a  leveled  pistol  in  the  master's  hand  just  as  it  ex 
ploded.  They  had  confined  him,  in  charge  of  the  un 
happy  steward,  to  his  cabin;  where,  after  he  had  com 
pletely  recovered  from  the  effects  of  the  blow,  and  Jeremy 
had  been  upheld  by  the  authorities  at  Table  Bay,  he  stub 
bornly  remained  until  the  Luna  had  been  warped  into 
Salem. 

From  the  moment  of  their  landing  they  had  not  ex 
changed  a  word.  Jeremy  was  surprised  to  find  himself 
at  present  bound  toward  the  other's  house.  He  was  not 
certain  that  Barzil  would  even  see  him;  but,  he  muttered, 
the  thing  had  lasted  long  enough,  they  were  too  old  for 
such  foolishness;  and  the  other  had  come  into  adverse 
winds,  no'w,  when  he  should  be  lying  quietly  in  a  snug 
harbor. 

He  had  never  paid  serious  attention  to  the  threatened 
complication  two  or  three  years  before,  when  Gerrit  had 
been  seen  repeatedly  with  Kate  Dunsack's  irregularly  born 
daughter.  He  was  sorry  for  the  two  women.  It  was  his 
opinion  that  the  man  had  been  shipped  drunk  by  some 
boarding  house  runner;  anyhow,  only  the  second  day  out 
Vollar  had  been  lost  overboard  from  the  main-royal  yard, 
and  Kate's  child  born  outside  the  law.  It  was  hard,  he 

[35] 


JAVA    HEAD 

told  himself  again,  walking  down  Orange  Street,  past  the 
Custom  House  to  Derby. 

The  girl,  Nettie  Vollar  —  they  had  adopted  the  father's 
name  —  was  attractive  in  a  decided  French  way,  with 
crisp  black  hair,  a  pert  nose  and  dimple,  and,  why, 
good  heavens,  twenty-one  or  two  years  old  if  she  was 
a  week!  How  time  did  run.  It  was  nothing  extraor 
dinary  if  Gerrit  had  been  seen  a  time  or  two  with  her  on 
the  street,  or  even  if  he  had  called  at  the  Dunsacks'. 
Barzil's  and  his  quarrel  didn't  extend  to  all  the  members 
of  their  families;  and  as  for  the  Dunsacks  being  common 
—  that  was  nonsense.  Barzil  was  as  good  as  he  any 
day;  only  where  he  had  prospered,  and  moved  up  into  a 
showy  place  on  the  Common,  the  other  had  had  the  head 
winds.  Through  no  fault  of  his  own  the  reputation  had 
fastened  on  him  of  being  unlucky  in  his  cargoes:  if  he 
carried  tea  and  colonial  exports  to,  say,  Antwerp,  they 
would  have  been  declared  contraband  while  he  was  at  sea, 
and  seized  on  the  docks;  he  had  been  blown,  in  an  im 
penetrable  fog,  ashore  on  Tierra  del  Fuego,  and,  barely 
making  Cape  Pembroke,  had  been  obliged  to  beach  his 
ship,  a  total  loss.  Then  there  was  Kate's  trouble.  Bar 
zil  was  a  rigorously  moral  and  religious  man  and  his  pain 
at  that  last  must  have  been  heavy. 

Jeremy  Ammidon's  mind  turned  to  Gerrit,  his  son;  this 
interest  in  Nettie  Vollar,  if  it  had  existed,  was  character 
istic  of  the  boy,  who  had  a  quick  heart  and  an  honest  dis 
dain  for  the  muddling  narrow  ways  of  the  land.  He 
would  have  sought  her  out  simply  from  the  instinct  to  pro 
test  against  the  smugness  of  Salem  opinion.  A  fine  sailor, 
and  a  master  at  twenty-two.  A  great  one  to  carry  sail; 

[36] 


JAVA    HEAD 

yet  in  the  sixteen  years  of  his  commands  he  had  had  no 
more  serious  accident  than  the  loss  of  a  fore-topgallant 
mast  or  splitting  a  couple  of  courses.  It  was  Gerrit's 
ability,  the  splendid  qualities  of  his  ship,  that  made 
Jeremy  hope  he  would  still  come  sailing  into  the  harbor 
with  some  narration  of  delay  and  danger  overcome. 

He  was  now  on  Derby  Street,  in  a  region  of  rigging  and 
sail  lofts,  block  and  pump  makers,  ships'  stores,  spar 
yards,  gilders,  carvers  and  workers  in  metal.  There  was 
a  strong  smell  of  tar  and  new  canvas  and  the  flat  odor 
that  rose  at  low  water.  Sailors  passed,  yellow  powerful 
Scandinavians  and  dark  men  with  earrings  from  southern 
latitudes,  in  red  or  checked  shirts,  blue  dungarees  and 
glazed  black  hats  with  trailing  ribbons,  or  in  cheap  and 
clumsy  shore  clothes.  There  was  a  scraping  of  fiddle 
from  an  upper  window,  the  sound  of  heavy  capering  feet 
and  the  stale  laughter  of  harborside  women. 

On  Hardy  Street  he  continued  to  the  last  house  at  the 
right,  the  farther  side  of  which  gave  across  a  yard  of  un 
even  bricks,  straggling  bushes  and  aged  splitting  apple 
trees  and  an  expanse  of  lush  grass  ending  abruptly  in  a 
wooden  embankment  and  the  water.  A  short  fence  turned 
in  from  the  sidewalk  to  the  front  door,  where  Jeremy 
knocked.  A  long  pause  followed,  in  which  he  became 
first  impatient  and  then  irritable;  and  he  was  lifting  his 
hand  for  a  second  summons  when  the  door  suddenly 
opened  and  he  was  facing  Kate  Vollar.  There  was  only 
a  faint  trace  of  surprise  on  her  apathetic  —  Jeremy  Ammi- 
don  called  it  moon-like  —  countenance;  as  if  her  over 
whelming  mischance  had  robbed  her  features  of  all  fur 
ther  expressions  of  interest  or  concern. 

[37] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  heard,"  Jeremy  said  in  a  voice  pitched  loud  enough 
to  conceal  any  inward  uncertainty,  "  that  your  father  had 
been  sick.  Met  Captain  Rendell  on  Essex  Street  and  he 
said  Barzil  had  lung  fever.  Thought  I'd  see  if  there  was 
any  truth  in  it." 

"  He  just  managed  to  stay  alive,"  Kate  Vollar  replied, 
gazing  at  him  with  her  stilled  gray  eyes.  "But  he's 
better  now,  though  he's  not  up  and  about  yet.  Shall  I  tell 
him  that  —  that  you  are  here?  " 

"  Yes.  Just  say  Jeremy  Ammidon's  below,  and  would 
like  to  pass  a  greeting  with  him." 

He  followed  the  woman  in,  and  entered  a  large  gloomy 
chamber  while  she  mounted  the  stair  leading  directly  from 
the  front.  The  blackened  fireplace  gaping  uncovered 
for  the  summer,  the  woodwork,  painted  yellow  with  an 
artificial  graining,  and  a  stiff  set  of  ebonized  chairs,  their 
dingy  crimson  plush  backs  protected  by  elaborate  thread 
antimacassars,  seemed  to  hold  and  reflect  the  misfortunes 
of  their  owner.  Jeremy  picked  up  an  ostrich  egg,  painted 
with  a  clump  of  viciously  green  coconut  palms  and  a 
cottony  surf;  he  put  it  down  with  an  absent  smile  and 
impatiently  fingered  a  volume  of  "  The  Life  of  Harriet 
Atwood  Newell."  She  was  one  of  the  missionaries  who 
had  gone  out  on  the  Caravan,  with  Augustine  Heard,  to 
India,  but  forbidden  to  land  there  had  died  not  long  after 
on  the  lie  de  France. 

"  Houqua  was  a  damned  good  heathen,"  he  said  aloud ; 
"  and  so  was  Nasservanjee."  He  left  the  table  and  pro 
ceeded  to  a  window  opening  upon  the  harbor,  here  fretted 
with  wharves.  A  barque  was  fast  in  a  small  stone-bound 
dock,  newly  in,  his  practiced  glance  saw,  from  a  blue 

[38] 


JAVA    HEAD 

water  voyage,  Africa  probably.  Her  standing  gear  was 
in  a  perfection  and  beauty  of  order  that  spoke  of  long 
tranquil  days  in  the  trades,  and  that  no  mere  harbor 
riggers  could  hope  to  accomplish.  The  deck  was  bur 
dened  with  the  ugly  confusion  of  unloading.  Jeremy 
studied  the  jibs  stowed  in  harbor  covers,  the  raking  masts 
and  tapering  royal  poles  over  the  stolid  roofs.  Ordinarily 
seeing  no  more  he  could  not  only  name  a  vessel  trading  out 
of  Salem,  but  from  her  rig  recognize  anyone  of  a  score  of 
masters  who,  otherwise  unheralded,  might  be  in  command. 

However,  here  he  was  at  a  loss,  and  he  thought  again 
of  the  change,  the  decline,  that  had  overtaken  Salem  ship 
ping,  the  celebrated  merchants;  the  pennants  of  William 
Gray,  he  reflected,  had  flown  from  the  main  truck  of 
fifteen  ships,  seven  barques,  thirteen  brigs  and  schooners. 
Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Saltonstone,  in  spite  of  his  vehe 
ment  protests,  the  counsel  of  the  oldest  member  of  the  firm, 
were  moving  shipment  by  shipment  all  their  business  to 
Boston,  listening  to  the  promptings  of  State  Street  and 
Central  Wharf. 

To  the  right  was  the  sagging  landing  from  which 
Barzil's  schooners  sailed  trading  with  the  West  Indies; 
and  back  of  it,  and  of  his  house,  stood  the  small  office. 
His  mind  had  turned  to  this  inconsiderable  commerce 
when  Kate  Vollar  entered  and  told  him  that  her  father 
would  see  him. 

Barzil  Dunsack  was  propped  up  in  bed  in  a  room 
above  that  in  which  Jeremy  had  been  waiting.  He, 
totally  different  from  the  other,  showed  his  age  in  sunken 
dry  cheeks,  a  forehead  like  an  arch  of  bone,  and  a  thick 
short  gray  beard.  A  long  faded  lock  of  hair  had  been 

[39] 


JAVA    HEAD 

hastily   brushed   forward   and   an   incongruously   bright 
knitted  scarf  drawn  about  his  shoulders. 

Jeremy  Ammidon  concealed  his  dismay  not  only  at 
Barzil's  wrecked  being  but  at  the  dismal  aspect  of  the 
interior,  the  worn  rugs  with  their  pieces  of  once  bright  ma 
terial  frayed  and  loose,  the  splitting  veneer  of  an  old 
chest  of  drawers  and  blistered  mirror  above  a  dusty  iron 
grate.  "You  have  got  in  among  the  rocks!"  he  ex 
claimed.  "  Still  they  tell  me  you've  weathered  the  worst. 
Copper  bound  and  oak  ribs.  Don't  build  them  like  that 
to-day." 

Barzil  Dunsack's  eyes  were  bright  and  searching  behind 
steel-rimmed  spectacles,  and  he  studied  Jeremy  without 
replying.  "  Well,  isn't  there  a  salute  in  you?  "  the  latter 
demanded,  incensed.  "  I'm  not  a  Malay  proa." 

The  grim  shadow  of  a  smile  dawned  on  Barzil's  coun 
tenance.  "  I  mind  one  hanging  on  our  quarter  by  For 
mosa,"  he  returned;  "  I  trained  a  cannon  aft  and  fired  a 
shot,  when  she  sheered  off.  That  was  in  the  Flora  in 
'ninety-seven." 

A  long  silence  enveloped  them.  Jeremy's  mind  was 
thronged  with  memories  of  ports  and  storms,  mates  and 
ships  and  logged  days.  "  Remember  Oahu  like  it  was 
when  we  first  made  it,"  he  queried,  "  and  the  Kanaka 
girls  swimming  out  to  the  ship  with  hybiscus  flowers 
in  their  hair?  Yes,  and  the  anchorage  at  Tahiti  with 
the  swells  pounding  on  the  coral  reef  and  Papeete 
under  the  mountain?  It  was  nice  there  in  the  afternoon, 
lying  off  the  beach  with  the  white  cottages  among  the 
palms  and  orange  trees  and  the  band  playing  in  the  grove 
by  Government  House." 

[40] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Captain  Dunsack  frowned  at  the  trivial  character  of 
these  memories.  He  muttered  something  about  the  weight 
of  the  Lord,  and  the  carnal  hearts  of  the  men  in  ships. 
Jeremy  declared,  "Stuff!  He'll  wink  at  a  sailor  man 
with  hardly  a  free  day  on  shore.  It  wasn't  bad  at  CaL- 
cutta,  either,  with  an  awning  on  the  quarter-deck,  watch 
ing  the  carriages  and  syces  in  the  Maidan  and  maybe  a 
corpse  or  two  floating  about  the  gangway  from  the  burn 
ing  ghauts." 

"  A  mean  entrance,"  Barzil  Dunsack  asserted.  "  I 
don't  know  a  worse  with  the  southwest  monsoon  in  the 
Bay  of  Bengal  and  the  pilot  brigs  gone  from  the  Sand 
Heads.  That's  where  Heard  got  pounded  with  the 
Emerald  drawing  nineteen  feet,  and  eighteen  on  the  bar. 
Shook  the  reefs  out  of  his  topsails,  laid  her  on  her  beam 
ends,  and  with  some  inches  saved  scraped  in." 

"  Pick  up  the  three  Juggernaut  Pagodas  of  Ganjam," 
Jeremy  remarked  absently. 

"  '  Thou  shalt  have  no  other  God  — '  " 

Jeremy,  with  a  glint  in  his  eye,  asked,  "  Wasn't  your 
last  consignment  of  West  India  molasses  marked  Med- 
ford?" 

"  You  always  were  a  scoffer,"  the  other  replied,  un 
moved. 

"How's  Nettie?"  Jeremy  Ammidon  inquired  with  a 
deliberate  show  of  interest. 

Barzil's  lips  tightened.  "  I  haven't  seen  her  for  a 
little,"  he  replied.  "  She's  been  visiting  at  Ipswich." 
Jeremy  added,  "  A  good  girl,"  but  the  man  in  bed  made  no 
further  comment.  His  undimmed  gaze  was  fastened 
upon  a  wall,  his  mouth  folded  in  a  hard  line  on  a  harsh 

[41] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  deeply  seamed  countenance.     An  able  man  pursued 
by  bad  luck. 

"  Nothing's  been  heard  from  Gerrit,"  Jeremy  said  after 
a  little.  Still  the  other  kept  silent.  His  face  darkened: 
by  God,  if  Barzil  hadn't  a  decent  word  for  the  fact  that 
Gerrit  was  seven  months  overdue,  perhaps  lost,  this  was 
not  a  house  for  him.  "  I  say  that  we've  had  nothing 
from  my  son  since  he  lay  in  the  Lye-ee-Moon  Pass  off 
Hong  Kong,"  he  repeated  sharply. 

A  spasm  of  suffering,  instantly  controlled,  passed  over 
Barzil's  face.  "  Gerrit  called  once  and  again  before  he 
last  sailed  for  Montevideo,"  he  finally  pronounced.  "  I 
stopped  it  and  he  left  in  a  temper.  I  —  I  won't  have  an 
other  mortal  sin  here  like  Kate's." 

"  Do  you  mean  that  Gerrit's  loose?  "  Jeremy  hotly  de 
manded,  rising.  "  A  more  honorable  boy  never  breathed." 
Barzil  was  cold.  "  I  told  him  not  to  come  back,"  he  re 
peated;  "it  would  only  lead  to  —  to  shamefulness." 
Jeremy  shook  his  cane  toward  the  bed.  "  I  may  be  a 
scoffer,"  he  cried,  "  but  I  wouldn't  hold  a  judgment  over  a 
child  of  mine!  I'm  not  so  damned  holy  that  I  can  look 
down  on  a  misfortunate  girl.  If  Gerrit  did  come  to  see 
Nettie  and  the  boy  had  a  liking  for  her,  why  you  drove 
away  a  cursed  good  husband.  And  if  you  think  for  a 
minute  I  wouldn't  welcome  her  because  that  Vollar  fell 
off  a  yard  before  he  could  find  a  preacher  you're  an  old 
fool!" 

"  Nettie  must  bear  her  burden :  far  better  be  dead  than 
a  stumbling  block." 

"  Well,  I'd  rather  be  a  drunken  pierhead  jumper  on  the 
Waterloo  Road  than  any  such  pious  blue  nose.  I'll  tell 

[42] 


JAVA    HEAD 

you  this,  too  —  I'd  hate  to  ship  afore  the  mast  under  you 
for  all  you'd  have  the  ensign  on  the  booby  hatch  with 
prayers  read  Sunday  morning.  I  don't  wonder  you  got 
into  weather;  I'd  have  no  word  for  a  Creator  who  didn't 
blow  in  your  eye." 

"  I'll  listen  to  no  blasphemy,  Captain  Ammidon,"  Bar- 
zil  Dunsack  said  sternly. 

"And  I'll  speak  my  mind,  Captain  Dunsack;  it's  this 
—  your  girls  are  a  long  sight  too  good  for  you  or  for  any 
other  judgmatical,  psalm-singing  devil  dodger."  He 
stood  fuming  at  the  door.  "  Good  afternoon  to  you." 

Barzil  Dunsack  reclined  with  his  gaunt  bearded  head 
sunk  forward  on  his  thin  chest  swathed  in  the  gay  worsted 
wrap,  his  wasted  hands,  the  tendons  corded  with  pale  vio 
let  veins,  clenched  outside  the  checkered  quilt  beneath 
which  his  body  made  scarcely  a  mark. 

Outside,  in  the  soft  glow  of  beginning  dusk,  Jeremy 
blamed  himself  bitterly  for  his  anger  at  the  sick  man.  He 
had  gone  to  see  him  in  a  spirit  friendly  with  old  memories, 
forgetful  of  their  long  quarrel  in  the  stirred  emotions  of 
the  past  days  of  youth  and  first  manhood;  and  he  had 
shouted  at  Barzil  as  if  he  were  a  lubber  at  the  masthead. 

He  realized  that  in  order  to  be  in  time  for  supper  he 
must  turn  toward  the  Common  and  home;  but  his  gaze 
caught  the  spars  of  the  strange  barque;  and,  mechanically, 
he  made  his  way  over  a  narrow  grassy  passage  to  the 
wharf.  She  was  the  Cora  Sellers  of  Marblehead,  and  he 
recognized  from  a  glance  at  the  cargo  that  she  had  been 
out  to  the  East  Coast  of  Africa  —  Mozambique  and  Zan 
zibar,  Aden  and  Muscat.  A  matted  frail  of  dates  swung 
ponderously  in  air,  there  were  baled  goatskins  and  sacks  of 

[43] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Mocha  coffee,  sagging  baskets  of  reddish  unwashed  gum 
copal  carried  in  bulk,  and  a  sun-blackened  mate  smoking 
a  rat-tail  Dutch  cigar  was  supervising  the  moving  of  ele 
phant  tusks  in  a  milky  glimmer  of  ivory  ashore. 

There  was  a  vague  murmur  of  the  rising  tide,  beyond  the 
wharves  and  warehouses  the  water  was  faintly  rippled  in 
silver  and  rose,  and  a  ship  was  standing  into  the  harbor 
with  all  her  canvas  spread  to  the  light  wind.  He  turned 
away  with  a  sigh  and  walked  slowly  up  toward  the  elms 
of  Pleasant  Street.  At  his  front  door  he  stopped  to  re 
gard  the  polished  brass  plate  where  in  place  of  his  name 
he  had  caused  to  be  engraved  the  words  Java  Head. 
They  held  for  him,  coming  into  this  pleasant  dwelling  after 
so  many  tumultuous  years  at  sea,  the  symbol  of  the  safe 
and  happy  end  of  an  arduous  voyage;  just  as  the  high 
black  rock  of  Java  Head  thrusting  up  over  the  horizon 
promised  the  placidity  and  accomplishment  of  the  Sunda 
Strait.  Whenever  he  noticed  the  plate  he  felt  again  the 
relief  of  coasting  that  northerly  shore: 

He  saw  the  mate  forward  with  the  crew  passing  the 
chains  through  the  hawse  pipes  and  shackling  them  to  the 
anchors.  The  island  rose  from  level  groves  of  shore 
palms  to  lofty  blue  peaks  terraced  with  rice  and  red- 
massed  kina  plantations,  with  shining  streams  and  green 
kananga  flowers  and  tamarinds.  The  land  breeze,  fra 
grant  with  clove  buds  and  cinnamon,  came  off  to  the  ship 
in  the  vaporous  dusk;  and,  in  the  blazing  sunlight  of 
morning,  the  Anjer  sampans  swarmed  out  with  a  shrill 
chatter  of  brilliant  birds,  monkeys  and  naked  brown  hu 
manity,  piled  with  dark  green  oranges  and  limes  and  pur 
ple  mangosteen. 

[44] 


JAVA    HEAD 

In  the  last  few  years,  particularly  with  Gerrit  away, 
he  had  turned  more  and  more  from  the  surroundings  of 
his  house  —  rather  it  had  become  William's  house  —  to 
an  inner  life  of  memories.  His  own  active  life  seemed  to 
him  to  have  been  infinitely  fuller,  more  purposeful  and 
various,  than  that  of  present  existence  at  Java  Head.  All 
Salem  had  been  different:  he  had  a  certain  contempt  for 
the  existence  of  his  son  William  and  the  latter's  associates 
and  friends.  He  had  said  that  the  trading  now  done  in 
ships  was  like  dealing  at  a  Boston  store,  and  the  mer 
chants  reminded  him  of  storekeepers.  The  old  days, 
when  a  voyage  was  a  public  affair,  and  a  ship's  manifest 
posted  in  the  Custom  House  on  which  anyone  might  write 
himself  down  for  a  varying  part  of  the  responsibility 
and  profit,  had  given  place  to  closed  capital;  the  passages 
from  port  to  port  with  the  captain,  as  often  as  not,  his  own 
supercargo  and  a  figure  of  importance,  had  become  sched 
uled  affairs  in  which  a  master  was  subjected  to  any  count- 
inghouse  clerk  with  an  order  from  the  firm:  the  ships 
themselves  were  fast  being  ruined. 

He  was  in  his  room,  after  supper,  seated  momentarily 
on  a  day  bed  with  a  covering  of  white  Siberian  fox  skins, 
and  he  pronounced  aloud,  in  a  tone  of  satirical  contempt, 
the  single  word,  "  Clipper."  Nearly  everyone  in  the  ship 
ping  business  seemed  to  have  been  touched  by  this  mad 
ness  for  the  ridiculous  ideas  of  an  experimental  Griffiths 
and  his  model  of  a  ship  with  the  bows  turned  inside  out, 
the  greatest  beam  aft  and  a  dead  rise  like  an  inverted  roof. 
That  the  Rainbow,  the  initial  result  of  this  insanity, 
hadn't  capsized  at  her  launching  had  been  due  to  some 
freak  of  chance;  just  as  her  miraculous  preservation 

[45] 


JAVA    HEAD 

through  a  voyage  or  so  to  China  could  have  been  made 
possible  only  by  continuously  mild  weather. 

Even  if  the  Rainbow  had  been  fast  —  her  run  was 
called  ninety-two  days  out  to  Canton  and  home  in  eighty- 
eight  —  it  was  absurd  to  suppose  that  there  had  been  the 
usual  monsoon.  And  if  she  did  come  in  a  little  ahead  of 
vessels  built  on  a  solid  full-bodied  model,  why  her  hold 
had  no  cargo  capacity  worth  the  name. 

Things  on  the  seas  were  going  to  the  devil!  He 
moved  down  to  the  library,  where  he  lighted  a  cheroot  and 
addressed  himself  to  the  Gazette;  but  his  restlessness  in 
creased:  the  paper  drooped  and  his  thoughts  turned  to 
Gerrit  as  a  small  boy.  He  saw  him  leaving  home,  for  the 
first  time,  to  go  to  the  school  at  Andover,  in  a  cloth  cap 
with  a  glazed  peak,  striped  long  pantaloons  and  blue  coat 
and  waistcoat;  later  at  the  high  desk  in  the  counting- 
rooms  of  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Saltonstone;  then  sail 
ing  as  supercargo  on  one  of  the  Company's  ships  to  Rus 
sia  and  Liverpool.  He  had  soon  dropped  such  clerking 
for  seamen's  duties,  and  his  rise  to  mastership  had  been 
rapid. 

Rhoda,  William's  wife,  entered  and  stood  before  him 
accusingly.  "You  are  worrying  again,"  she  declared; 
"  in  here  all  by  yourself.  It  really  seems  as  if  you  didn't 
believe  in  our  interest  or  affection.  I  have  a  feeling,  and 
you  know  they  are  always  right,  that  Gerrit  will  sail  into 
the  harbor  any  day  now." 

He  had  always  liked  Rhoda,  a  large  handsome  woman 
with  rich  coloring  —  her  countenance  somehow  reminded 
him  of  an  apricot  —  and  fine  clothes.  She  paused,  studied 

[46] 


JAVA    HEAD 

him  for  a  moment,  and  then  asked,  "  Was  your  call  on 
Captain  Dunsack  pleasant?  " 

"  It  ought  to  have  been,"  he  confided,  "  but  I  got  mad 
and  talked  like  a  Dutch  uncle,  and  Barzil  went  off  on  a 
holy  tack." 

"About  Nettie  Vollar?  " 

Jeremy  nodded.  "  Look  here,  Rhoda,"  he  demanded, 
"  did  Gerrit  ever  say  anything  to  you  about  her?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  told  him;  "  Gerrit  was  very  frank." 

"Did  he  like  the  girl?  " 

"  I  couldn't  make  that  out.  But  if  there  hadn't  been, 
well  —  something  unusual  in  her  circumstances  I  think  he 
would  never  have  noticed  her.  Gerrit  is  a  curious  mix 
ture,  a  very  impressionable  heart  and  a  contrary  stubborn 
will.  He  was  sorry  for  Nettie,  and,  at  the  way  a  great 
many  people  treated  her,  threw  himself  into  opposition. 
Nettie's  father  made  him  very  mad,  and  Gerrit  pretty 
well  damned  all  Salem  before  he  left  in  the  Nautilus. 
He  was  excruciatingly  funny:  you  know  Gerrit  can  be, 
particularly  when  he  imitates  anybody.  I  think  being 
away  at  sea  a  great  deal,  and  having  absolute  command 
of  everything,  give  men  a  different  view  of  things  from 
ours.  What  is  terribly  important  to  Salem  hardly  touches 
Gerrit;  it's  all  silly  pretense,  or  worse,  to  him. 

"  I  wouldn't  mind  that  if  it  weren't  for  the  sense  of 
humor  that  leads  him  into  the  wildest  extravagances,  and 
the  fact  that  he'll  act  on  his  feelings.  You  know  I'm 
devoted  to  him  but  I  give  a  sigh  of  relief  whenever  he 
gets  away  on  his  ship  without  doing  anyone  of  the  hun 
dred  insanities  he  threatens." 

[47] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Gerrit's  like  me,"  he  said. 

"  More  than  William,"  she  agreed.  "  William  is  never 
impetuous,  and  he's  often  impatient  with  his  brother. 
He's  a  splendid  husband,  but  Gerrit  would  make  a  won 
derful  lover.  I'm  thankful  I  never  fell  into  his  affec 
tions  .  .  .  too  wearing  for  an  indolent  woman." 

"  You've  been  a  great  comfort  and  pleasure,  Rhoda," 
he  told  her.  "  I  only  wish  Gerrit  could  marry  someone 
like  you  — " 

"  But  who  would  give  him  sons,"  she  interrupted. 

"  It's  just  as  you  say  about  him,  and  I've  always  been 
uneasy.  God  knows  what  he  won't  do  —  on  land.  Wil 
liam's  a  great  deal  happier,  for  all  his  brother's  humor. 
I  joke  William,  but  he's  very  satisfactory  and  solid.  He'll 
make  port  if  he  doesn't  get  tied  up  with  newfangled  no 
tions.  Why,  it  stands  to  reason  that  a  ship  built  like  a 
knife  would  double  up  in  the  seas  off  the  Falklands." 

"  He  has  a  lot  of  confidence  in  Mr.  McKay." 

"  McKay  is  a  good  man  unsettled.  The  May  Brough- 
ton  is  a  fine  barque,  and  his  packet  ships  are  as  seaworthy 
as  any,  but  — "  his  indignation  increased  so  that  he  sput 
tered,  and  Rhoda  laughed.  "  Now  your  girls,"  he  added, 
"  fine  models,  all  of  them,  plenty  of  beam,  work  in  any 
kind  of  weather." 

"  That's  very  complimentary,"  she  assured  him,  rising. 
"  You  mustn't  worry  about  Gerrit.  Remember,  my  pre 
dictions  never  fail." 

When  she  had  gone  his  mind  returned  to  storms  he  had 
safely  weathered  —  the  gray  gales  of  Cape  Horn,  black 
hurricanes  and  the  explosive  tempests  in  eastern  straits 
and  seas.  He  took  from  the  drawer  of  a  bookcase  with 

[48] 


JAVA    HEAD 

glass  doors  set  in  geometrical  pattern  a  thin  volume  bound 
in  black  boards.  A  paper  label  was  inscribed  in  a  small, 
carefully  formed  script,  "  Journal  of  my  intended  voyage 
from  Salem  to  the  East  Indies  in  the  Ship  Woodbine." 
He  opened  at  random : 

"  Comes  in  with  strong  wind  from  SSE  with  rain 
squalls.  Very  ugly  sea  on.  Double  reefed  the  Topsails, 
reefed  the  courses  and  furled  the  mainsail.  At  six  p.m. 
shipped  a  very  heavy  sea  that  carried  away  the  bulwarks 
on  the  larboard  quarter  and  stove  those  on  the  starboard 
quarter  and  amidships  .  .  .  upper  cabin  filled  with  water. 
Through  the  night  strong  gales.  .  .  .  Lightning  at  all 
points  of  the  compass." 

The  memory  of  this  night,  six  days  out  from  Manilla 
to  Hong  Kong,  was  clearer  than  the  actuality  of  the  room 
in  which  he  sat,  an  old  man  with  his  activity,  his  strength, 
his  manhood,  far  behind  him,  a  hulk. 

"  At  ten  split  the  mainsail  in  pieces.  Close  reefed  the 
fore  and  double  reefed  the  main-topsails.  Rising  gales 
and  heavy  head  sea.  Shipping  a  great  quantity  of  water 
and  leaking  considerable.  Bent  a  new  mainsail  and  set 
it.  Reefed  and  set  the  jib.  Pumping  near  two  thousand 
strokes  an  hour. 

"  October  seventh,  Sunday.  Comes  in  with  strong  gales 
and  a  heavy  head  sea.  Both  officers  crippled  and  man 
laid  up.  Through  the  night  the  same.  Leaking  badly. 
A  great  number  of  junks  in  sight  .  .  .  and  so  at  five  p.m. 
come  to  anchor." 

He  had  been  a  good  man  then,  sixteen  days  on  the 
quarter-deck  without  going  below;  insensible  to  ice  or 
fever  or  weariness.  He  had  been  autocratic,  too;  and  had 

[49] 


JAVA    HEAD 

his  boy  servant  carrying  areca  nuts,  chunam  and  tobacco 
in  two  silk  bags,  another  with  a  fan  and  a  third  holding 
an  umbrella.  Such  things  were  all  over  now,  he  under 
stood,  in  this  driving  age. 

His  mind  continually  returned  to  Gerrit,  to  dwell  on 
the  vast  number  of  perils  held  in  store  by  the  sea;  there 
was  always  the  possibility  of  scurvy,  an  entire  crew  rot 
ting  alive  in  the  forecastle  and  the  ship  broached  to,  dis 
masted;  of  mutiny;  the  sheer  smothering  finality  of  vol 
canic  waves.  He  had  never  realized  until  now,  in  the 
misery  of  uncertainty,  the  hellish  loneliness  of  a  shipmas 
ter  at  sea;  the  pride  of  duty,  the  necessity  of  discipline, 
that  put  him  beyond  all  counsel,  all  assistance  and  human 
interdependence.  Jeremy,  who  had  arrogantly  accepted 
this  responsibility  without  a  question,  through  so  many 
long  years  and  voyages,  now  dreaded  it,  found  it  an  in 
human  burden,  for  his  son. 

William  couldn't  be  expected  to  appreciate  the  diffi 
culties  of  his  brother's  position:  all  the  former's  experi 
ence  had  been  got  when,  with  James  Saltonstone  and  a 
party  of  Salem  merchants,  he  ventured  to  the  lighthouse 
at  the  entrance  of  the  harbor,  had  a  cold  collation,  and 
returned  with  the  pilot  or  in  the  Custom  House  sloop. 
These  occasions  of  huzzas  and  salutes  and  speeches  were 
supplemented  with  a  hasty  inspection,  now  and  then,  of  a 
vessel  lying  still  at  the  wharf  with  sails  harbor  furled. 
William  guessed  little  of  the  long  effort  through  which  a 
ship  won  from  the  first  of  those  moments  to  the  last.  He 
was  solely  concerned  with  the  returns  of  the  cargo. 

However,  Rhoda  was  right,  and  this  mooning  wouldn't 
bring  Gerrit  into  port.  He  turned  to  the  bookcase,  where 

[50] 


JAVA    HEAD 

a  squat  bottle  of  Medford  rum  rested  beside  a  tumbler; 
after  a  drink  he  lighted  a  cheroot  and  smoking  vigorously, 
with  hands  clasped  behind  him,  paced  back  and  forth 
in  an  undeviating  line  between  the  door  to  the  hall  and 
a  dark  polished  secretary  he  had  bought  in  London. 

While  he  was  walking  Camilla  came  into  the  room  and 
sedately  took  a  seat  on  one  of  the  formal  chairs  against  the 
wall.  "  I  guess  you  think  that's  the  deck  of  a  ship,"  she 
said  conversationally.  He  regarded  her  with  a  faint 
threatening  glint  of  humor.  Camilla's  dignity  was  stu 
pendous;  particularly  now,  when,  he  observed,  her  skirts 
stood  out  in  a  thoroughly  grown  manner.  He  liked 
Laurel  best  of  William's  children;  she  had,  in  spite  of  her 
confusion  in  regard  to  outports,  a  surprising  grasp  upon 
many  of  the  details  of  life  on  shipboard,  and  a  largeness 
of  manner  and  expression  entertaining  in  a  little  girl. 
Sidsall  was  the  most  ingratiating  —  she  had  Gerrit's  di 
rect  kindling  gaze;  Janet  showed  no  individuality  yet 
beyond  an  entire  willingness  to  conform  to  outward  cir 
cumstance  while  pursuing  deeply  secret  speculations 
within.  But  Camilla  impressed  the  entire  family  by  the 
rigidity  of  her  correctness  in  personal  and  social  niceties. 
At  times,  he  felt,  she  would  be  a  nuisance  but  for  the  firm 
hand  of  her  mother  and  his  own  contribution  to  their 
well-being  by  an  occasional  sly  sally. 

"  It  might  be  that,"  he  admitted;  "  if  it  weren't  for  the 
facts  that  it's  a  house  and  library,  and  I'm  an  old  man, 
and  you're  not  at  all  like  the  second  mate." 

"  I  should  hope  not,"  she  replied  decidedly.  "  A  sec 
ond  mate  isn't  anything,  and  I  am  a  —  a  young  lady  any 
how." 

[51] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  You'll  soon  be  out  at  dances." 

"  I  go  to  parties  now;  that  is,  mother  let  me  stay  at  the 
Coggswells'  on  Thursday  until  the  men  came  at  nine  for 
sangaree.  And  I'm  at  all  the  Ballad  Soirees." 

He  made  a  gesture  of  pretended  surprise  and  admira 
tion.  "  1  don't  suppose  they  ever  have  a  good  chantey 
with  the  stuff  they  play  ?  "  he  queried.  "  Dear  me,  no. 
Mr.  Dempster  sings  The  Indian's  Lament,  and  The  May 
Queen:  that's  a  cantata  and  it's  in  three  parts." 

Jeremy  began  to  hum,  and  in  a  moment  was  intoning  in 
a  loud  monotonous  voice,  sweeping  a  hand  up  and  down: 

"  To  my  hero,  Bangedero, 
Singing  hey  for  a  gay  Hash  girl." 

"  I  don't  think  that's  very  nice,"  she  said  primly. 

"What  do  you  mean  —  not  very  nice?  "  he  demanded, 
incensed.  "  There's  nothing  finer  with  a  rousing  chan- 
teyman  leading  it  and  the  watch  hauling  on  the  braces. 
You'd  never  hear  the  like  at  any  Ballad  Soiree.  And : 

"  Sweet  William,  he  married  a  wife, 
'  Gentle  Jenny,'  cried  Rose  Marie, 
To  be  the  sweet  comfort  of  his  life, 
As  the  dew  flies  over  the  mulberry  tree/' 

"  There  isn't  much  sense  to  it,"  she  observed. 

For  a  little,  indignant  at  her  disparagement  of  such 
noble  fragments,  he  tramped  silently  back  and  forth, 
followed  by  a  cloud  of  smoke  from  the  cheroot.  No  one 
on  land  could  understand  the  absorbing  significance  of 
every  detail  of  a  ship's  life.  .  .  .  Only  Gerrit,  of  all  his 
family,  knew  the  chanteys  and  watches,  the  anxiety  and 

[52] 


JAVA    HEAD 

beauty  of  landfalls  —  the  blue  Falkland*  or  Teneriffe 
rising  above  the  clouds,  the  hurried  making  and  taking  of 
sail  in  the  squalls  of  the  Doldrums. 

"  In  India,"  he  told  her,  stopping  in  his  measured 
course,  "  female  children  are  given  to  the  crocodiles." 

Her  mouth  parted  at  this,  her  eyes  became  dilated,  and 
she  slipped  from  the  chair.  "  That's  perfectly  awfully 
appalling,"  she  breathed.  "  The  little  brown  girl  babies. 
Oh,  father,"  she  cried,  as  William  Ammidon  came  into  the 
library,  "  what  do  you  suppose  grandfather  says,  that  in 
India  female  children  are  .  .  .  crocodiles."  Words  failed 
her. 

"What's  the  sense  in  frightening  the  child,  father?" 
William  remonstrated.  "  I  wish  you  would  keep  those 
horrors  for  the  old  heathen  of  the  Marine  Society." 

Jeremy  had  a  lively  sense  of  guilt;  he  had  been  be 
trayed  by  Camilla's  confounded  airs  and  pretensions.  He 
ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself,  telling  the  girl  such 
things.  "  The  British  Government  is  putting  a  stop  to 
that,"  he  added  hastily,  "  and  to  suttees  — " 

"  What  are  they?  "  she  inquired. 

"  Never  mind,  Camilla,"  her  father  interposed;  "  go  up 
with  your  mother  and  sisters. 

"  I  suppose  it's  no  good  speaking  to  you,"  William  con 
tinued  ;  "  but  my  family  is  not  a  crew  and  this  house  isn't 
the  Two  Capes.  You  might  make  some  effort  to  realize 
you're  on  land." 

"  I  know  I'm  on  land,  William;  tell  that  any  day  from  a 
sight  of  you.  You  can  afford  to  listen  a  little  now  and 
then  about  the  sea.  That's  where  all  you  have  came  from ; 
it's  the  same  with  near  everybody  in  Salem.  Vessels 

[53] 


.     JAVA    HEAD 

brought  them  and  vessels  kept  them  going;  and,  with  f  j 
wharves  as  empty  as  they  were  this  afternoon,  soon  the-  ^ 
won't  be  any  Salem  to  talk  about." 

"  The  tide's  turned  from  here,"  the  other  replied;  "  witn 
the  increase  in  tonnage  and  the  importance  of  time  we  need 
the  railway  and  docking  facility  of  the  larger  cities  — 
Boston  and  New  York." 

"  It's  running  out  fast  enough,"  Jeremy  agreed;  "  ami 
there's  a  lot  going  out  with  it  you'll  never  see  again  — 
like  the  men  who  put  a  reef  in  England  in  'twelve." 

"  You  are  always  sounding  the  same  strings;  we're  at 
peace  with  the  world  now,  and  a  good  thing  for  shipping." 

"  Peace!  "  the  elder  declared  hotly;  "  you  and  the  Dem 
ocrats  may  call  it  that,  but  it's  a  damned  swindle,  with 
the  British  to  windward  of  you  and  hardly  a  sail  now 
drawing  in  your  ropes.  What  did  Edmund  Burke  tell 
Parliament  in  'seventy-five  about  our  whalers,  hey !  Why, 
that  from  Davis  Strait  to  the  Antipodes,  from  the  Falk- 
lands  to  Africa,  we  outdrove  Holland,  France  and  Eng 
land.  After  the  laws  and  bounties  Congress  passed  in 
'eighty-nine  what  could  you  see  —  something  like  a  half 
million  tonnage  gained  in  three  years  or  so.  In  the  war  of 
'twelve  your  land  soldiers  were  a  pretty  show,  with  the 
Capitol  burning;  but  when  it  was  finished  the  privateers 
had  sunk  over  nine  million  dollars  of  British  shipping  to 
their  sixty  thousand.  The  Chesapeake  luggers  have  gone 
out  with  the  tide,  too.  And  then,  by  God,  by  God,  what 
then:  the  treaty  of  Ghent,  with  England  impressing  our 
seamen  and  tying  our  ships  up  in  what  ports  she  chose 
under  a  right  of  search !  On  top  of  this  your  commission 
ers  repeal  the  ship  laws  and  the  British  allow  you  to  carry 

[54] 


JAVA    HEAD 

native  cargoes  to  the  United  Kingdom  with  a  part  of 
1&e  customs  and  harbor  dues  off. 

"  But  in  spite  of  Congress  and  political  sharks  we  went 
out  to  India  and  China  direct,  with  The  George  home  from 
Calcutta  in  ninety-five  days,  and  the  East  Indiamen  six  or 
seven  months  on  the  shorter  run  to  England.  I  can  show 
you  what  the  London  Times  said  about  that,  it's  in  my 
fjesk :  *  Twelve  years  of  peace,  and  .  .  .  the  shipping 
.nterest  ...  is  half  ruined  .  .  .  thousands  of  our  manu 
factures  are  seeking  redemption  in  foreign  lands.'  It  goes 
on  to  tell  that  American  seamen  already  controlled  an 
important  part  of  the  British  carrying  trade  to  the  East 
Indies.  Yet  your  precious  lawmakers  open  our  West  In 
dia  trade  to  Great  Britain,  but  they  wouldn't  ask  the 
privilege  to  carry  a  cargo  from  British  India  to  Liverpool 
or  Canada." 

"  Now,  father,"  William  put  in,  "  you  are  getting  ex 
cited  again.  It  isn't  good  for  you.  We  are  not  all  such 
fools  to-day  as  you  make  out." 

"  Look  at  the  masters  themselves,"  Jeremy  continued 
explosively;  "gentlemen  like  Gerrit,  from  Harvard  Uni 
versity,  and  not  lime- juicers  beating  their  way  aft  with  a 
belaying  pin.  They  could  sail  a  ship  with  two-thirds  the 
crew  of  a  Britisher  with  her  clumsy  yellow  hemp  sails 
and  belly  you  could  lose  a  dinghy  in.  Mind,  I  don't 
say  the  English  aren't  handy  in  a  ship  and  that  they 
wouldn't  clew  up  a  topsail  clean  at  the  edge  of  hell.  What 
we  are  on  the  seas  came  over  from  them.  But  we  bettered 
it,  William,  and  they  knew  it;  and,  naturally  enough,  laid 
out  to  sail  around  us.  I  don't  blame  England,  but  I  do 
our  God  damn — " 

[55] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Father,"  the  other  firmly  interrupted,  "  you  are  shout 
ing  as  if  you  were  on  the  quarter-deck  in  a  gale.  I  must 
insist  on  your  quieting  down;  you'll  burst  a  blood  vessel." 

"Maybe  I  am,"  Jeremy  muttered;  "and  it  wouldn't 
matter  much  if  I  did.  When  I  see  a  nation  with  ship 
masters  who  would  set  their  royals  when  others  hove  too, 
and  get  there,  all  snarled  up  with  shore  lines  and  political 
duffel,  I'm  nigh  ready  to  burst  something." 

"  Rhoda  said  that  you  were  at  the  Dunsacks'  this  after 
noon;  I  saw  Edward  in  Boston  yesterday." 

"  I  don't  care  if  you  saw  the  Flying  Dutchman,"  the 
other  asserted,  breathing  stormily. 

"  It's  curious  about  the  China  service,"  William  went 
on;  "  anyone  out  there  for  a  number  of  years  gets  to  look 
Chinese.  Edward  is  as  yellow  as  a  lemon,  but  nothing 
like  as  pleasant  a  color.  Thin,  too,  and  nervous;  hands 
crawling  all  over  themselves,  never  still  for  a  moment.  He 
didn't  say  why  he  had  left  Heard  and  Company,  and  I 
didn't  quite  like  to  ask.  Edward  came  on  from  England 
in  the  Queen  of  the  West,  the  Swallow  Tail  Line.  I  did 
ask  him  if  he  were  going  to  settle  in  Salem,  but  he 
couldn't  say;  there  was  something  about  a  Boston  house. 
It  seems  that  Gerrit  carried  his  chest  and  things  from 
Canton  in  the  Nautilus  as  an  accommodation." 

Suddenly  Jeremy  felt  very  insecure,  his  body  heavy  and 
knees  weak,  failing.  He  stumbled  back  into  the  chair 
by  the  fireplace,  William  at  his  side.  "  You  must  pay 
some  attention  to  what  you're  told,  father,"  the  latter  said 
anxiously.  "  How  are  you  now?  " 

"  I'm  all  right,"  he  declared  testily,  trying  to  brush  away 
the  dimness  floating  before  his  eyes. 

[56] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"Shall  I  help  you  up  to  bed?" 

"  I'll  go  to  bed  when  I've  a  mind  to,"  Jeremy  retorted. 
"  I  am  not  under  cover  yet  by  a  long  reach."  To 
establish  his  well-being  he  rose  and  moved  to  the  secre 
tary,  where  he  got  a  fresh  cheroot,  and  lighted  it  with 
slightly  trembling  fingers.  He  grumbled  inarticulately, 
remembering  his  own  exploits  in  the  carrying  of  sail  and 
record  runs  under  the  bluff  bows  of  the  Honorable  John 
Company  itself.  The  ebb  tide,  he  thought,  returning  to 
William's  figure  and  its  amplification  by  himself.  So 
much  that  had  been  good  sweeping  out  to  sea  never  to  re 
turn.  .  .  .  Gerrit  long  overdue. 

Once  more  he  shook  himself  free  of  numbing  dread; 
automatically  he  had  fallen  back  into  the  passage  from  the 
secretary  to  the  hall  door.  He  saw  that  he  had  worn 
threadbare  a  narrow  strip  where  his  feet  had  so  often 
pressed.  It  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  see  about  a 
fresh  case  of  cheroots  soon,  primes,  too;  they  needn't 
try  to  put  him  off  with  the  second  quality.  He  was  put 
off  a  great  deal  lately;  people  pretended  to  be  listening  to 
him,  and  all  the  time  their  thoughts  were  somewhere  else, 
either  that  or  they  were  merely  politely  concealing  the 
opinion  that  he  was  out  of  date,  of  no  importance. 

His  family  were  always  providing  against  his  fatigue  or 
excitement;  at  the  countinghouse  the  gravest  problems,  he 
was  certain,  were  withheld  from  him.  At  the  occurrence 
of  this  possibility  a  fresh  indignation  poured  through  his 
brain.  Fuming  and  tramping  up  and  down  he  determined 
that  to-morrow  he  would  show  any  of  the  clerks  who 
didn't  attend  to  his  wishes  or  counsel  that  he  was  still 
senior  partner  of  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Saltonstone. 

[57] 


Ill 


THE  evening  was  surprisingly  warm  and  still,  with 
an  intermittent  falling  of  rain,  and  the  windows 
were  open  in  the  room  where  Rhoda  Ammidon 
sat  regarding  half  dismayed  her  reflection  in  the  mirror  of 
a  dressing  table.  A  few  minutes  before  she  had  discovered 
her  first  gray  hair.  It  was  not  only  the  mere  assault  upon 
her  vanity,  but,  too,  a  realization  far  deeper  —  here  was 
the  stamp  of  time,  the  mark  of  a  considerable  progress 
toward  the  end  itself.  Her  emotions  were  various;  but, 
curiously  enough,  almost  the  first  had  been  a  wave  of  pas 
sionate  tenderness  for  William  and  her  little  girls.  The 
shock  of  finding  that  arresting  sign  was  now  giving  place 
to  a  purely  feminine  reaction.  She  considered  for  a  mo 
ment  the  purchase  of  a  bottle  of  hair  coloring,  then  with 
a  disdainful  gesture  dismissed  such  a  temporary  and 
troublesome  measure. 

She  kept  an  undiminishing  pride  in  her  appearance  and 
a  relentless  care  and  choice  in  the  details  of  her  dress, 
pleased  by  the  knowledge  that  the  attention  men  paid 
her  showed  no  indication  yet  of  growing  perfunctory. 
She  had  been  much  admired  both  in  Boston  and  London 
through  her  youth,  and  she  recalled  her  early  doubts  at 
the  prospect  of  life  in  Salem;  but  she  realized  now  that, 
as  her  years  and  children  multiplied,  she  was  by  imper- 

[58] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ceptible  degrees  returning  to  a  traditional  New  England 
heritage. 

She  was  glad,  however,  that  William's  wide  connections 
lifted  him  above  a  purely  local  view;  William  was  really 
a  splendid  husband.  Rhoda  was  conscious  of  this  together 
with  a  clear  recognition  of  his  faults,  and  quite  aside  from 
both  existed  her  unreasoning  affection.  The  latter  vividly 
dominated  her,  shut  out,  on  any  occasion  of  stress,  all  else ; 
but  for  the  most  part  she  held  him  in  an  attitude  of  mildly 
amused  comprehension. 

Gerrit  Ammidon  she  hadn't  seen  until  after  her  engage 
ment  to  William,  and  she  sometimes  thought  of  the  former 
in  connection  with  marriage.  Gerrit,  she  admitted  to  her 
self,  was  a  far  more  romantic  figure  than  William;  not 
handsomer  —  William  Ammidon  was  very  good  looking 
—  but  more  arresting,  with  his  hair  swinging  about  his 
ears  and  intense  blue  gaze.  An  exciting  man,  she  de 
cided  again,  for  whom  one  would  eternally  put  on  the  love 
liest  clothes  possible ;  a  man  to  make  you  almost  as  ravish- 
ingly  happy  as  miserable,  and,  therefore,  disturbing  as  a 
husband. 

At  this  her  mind  returned  to  her  gray  hair  and  the  fact 
that  the  metal  backlog  of  the  kitchen  fire,  which  supplied 
the  house  with  hot  water,  had  been  leaking  over  the  hearth. 
A  feeling  of  melancholy  possessed  her  at  the  turning 
of  younger  visions  into  commonplace  necessities,  but  she 
dismissed  it  with  the  shadow  of  a  smile  —  it  was  absurd 
for  a  woman  of  her  age  to  dwell  on  such  frivolous  things. 
Yet  she  still  lingered  to  wonder  if  men  too  kept  intact 
among  their  memories  the  radiant  image  of  their  youth,  if 
they  ever  thought  of  it  with  tenderness  and  extenuation. 

[59] 


JAVA    HEAD 

She  decided  in  the  negative,  convinced  that  men,  even  at 
the  end  of  many  years,  never  definitely  lost  connection 
with  their  early  selves,  there  was  always  a  trace  of  hope 
fulness,  of  jaunty  vanity  —  sometimes  winning  and  some 
times  merely  ridiculous  —  attached  to  their  decline. 

Rhoda  stirred  and  moved  to  a  window,  gazing  vaguely 
out  into  the  moist  blue  obscurity.  Sidsall,  she  realized, 
was  maturing  with  a  disconcerting  rapidity.  Depths  were 
opening  in  the  girl's  being  at  which  she,  her  mother,  could 
only  guess.  It  was  exactly  as  if  a  crystal  through  and 
through  which  she  had  gazed  had  suddenly  been  veiled  by 
rosy  clouds.  Sidsall  had  a  charming  nature,  direct  and 
unsuspicious  and  generously  courageous. 

There  was  a  sound  at  the  door,  and  William  entered, 
patently  ruffled.  It  was  clear  that  he  had  had  another 
disagreement  with  his  father.  "  It's  shameful  how  you 
disturb  him,"  she  declared. 

"  Look  here,  Rhoda,"  he  replied  vigorously.  "  I  won't 
continually  be  put  in  the  wrong.  It  seems  as  if  I  had  no 
affection  for  the  old  gentleman.  I  always  have  the  dim- 
cult  thing  to  do,  and  he  has  been  slightly  contemptuous 
ever  since  I  was  a  boy  because  I  didn't  go  to  sea.  The 
truth  is  —  while  I  wouldn't  think  of  letting  him  know  — 
he's  a  tremendous  nuisance  pottering  about  the  counting- 
rooms  with  his  stories  of  antediluvian  trading  ^voyages. 
And  worse  is  to  come  —  these  new  clipper  ships  and  pas 
sages  have  knocked  the  wind  out  of  the  old  slow  full- 
bottomed  vessels.  We  have  about  determined  to  reorgan 
ize  our  fleet  entirely,  and  are  in  treaty  with  Donald  McKay 
for  an  extreme  clipper  type  of  twelve  hundred  tons. 

"  Of  course,  he's  my  parent;  but  I  wonder  at  Salton- 
[60] 


JAVA    HEAD 

stone's  patience.  Father  won't  hear  of  the  opium  trade 
and  it's  turning  over  thousand  per  cent  profits.  We  are 
privately  operating  two  fast  topsail  schooners  in  India 
now,  but  it's  both  inconvenient  and  a  risk.  They  ought 
to  be  put  right  under  our  house  flag  for  credit  alone.  It  is 
all  bound  to  come  up,  and  then  he'll  go  off  like  a  cannon." 

"  Couldn't  you  wait  till  he's  dead,  William  ?  "  she  asked. 
"  It  won't  be  a  great  while  now.  I  can  see  that  he  has 
failed  dreadfully  from  this  worry  about  Gerrit." 

"  Five  years  will  make  all  the  difference.  We  are  losing 
tea  cargoes  every  month  to  these  ships  making  sensational 
runs.  I  don't  talk  much,  Rhoda,  about,  well  —  my  fam 
ily;  but  I  am  as  upset  over  Gerrit  as  anyone  else.  Except 
for  a  tendency  to  carry  too  much  sail  there's  not  a  better 
shipmaster  out  of  New  England.  Not  only  that  .  .  . 
he's  my  brother.  It's  easy  to  like  Gerrit ;  his  opinions  are 
a  little  wild,  and  an  exaggerated  sense  of  justice  gets  him 
into  absurd  situations;  yet  his  motives  are  the  purest  pos 
sible.  Perhaps  that  word  pure  describes  him  better  than 
any  other,  however  people  who  didn't  know  might  smile. 
As  a  man,  Rhoda,  I  can  assert  that  he  is  surprisingly 
clean-hearted." 

"That's  a  wonderful  quality,"  she  agreed;  "why  any 
one  should  smile  is  beyond  me.  William,  would  you 
know  that  my  hair  is  turning  gray,  do  I  look  a  lot  older 
than  I  did  five  years  ago?  " 

He  studied  her  complacently.  "  You've  hardly  changed 
since  I  married  you,"  he  asserted;  "a  great  deal  prettier 
than  these  young  cramped  riggers  I  see  about.  The  girls, 
too,  are  just  like  you  —  good  armfuls  all  of  them." 

The  next  day  was  flawlessly  sunny,  the  slightly  stir- 
[61] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ring  air  reminiscent  of  the  sea,  and  the  lilacs  every 
where  were  masses  of  purple  and  white  bloom.  Stepping 
down  from  her  carriage  on  the  morning  round  of  shopping 
Rhoda  encountered  Nettie  Vollar  leaving  one  of  the  stores 
of  Cheapside. 

"  Why,  Nettie,"  she  exclaimed  kindly,  "  it's  been  the 
longest  time  since  I've  seen  you.  It  is  just  no  use 
asking  you  to  the  house,  and  it  seems,  with  nothing 
to  do,  I  never  have  a  minute  for  the  visits  I'd  like  to 
make."  Nettie,  she  thought,  was  a  striking  girl,  no  — 
woman,  with  her  stack  of  black  hair,  dark  sparkling  eyes 
and  red  spot  on  either  cheek.  More  fetching  in  profile 
than  full  face,  her  nose  had  a  pert  angle  and  her  cleft  chin 
was  enticingly  rounded.  Later  she  would  be  too  fat  but 
now  her  body  was  ripely  perfect. 

"  I  don't  go  anywhere  much,"  she  responded,  in  a  voice 
faintly  and  instinctively  antagonistic.  "  I  don't  like  kind 
ness  in  people;  but  I  suppose  I  ought  to  be  contented  — 
that's  all  I'll  probably  ever  get  from  anybody  who  is  a 
thing  in  the  world.  Mrs.  Ammidon,"  she  hesitated,  then 
continued  more  rapidly,  her  gaze  lowered,  "  have  you  had 
any  word  about  Captain  Ammidon  yet  ?  Have  they  given 
up  hope  of  the  Nautilus  ?  " 

"  We've  had  no  news,"  Rhoda  told  her,  and  then  she 
added  her  conviction  that  Gerrit  would  return  safely. 

"  He  was  better  than  kind,"  Nettie  Vollar  said.  "  I'm 
sure  he  liked  me,  Mrs.  Ammidon,  or  he  would  have  if 
everything  hadn't  been  spoiled  by  grandfather.  He  thinks 
I'm  a  dreadful  sin,  you  know,  a  punishment  on  mother. 
But  inside  of  me  I  don't  feel  different  from  others.  Some 
times  I  —  I  wonder  that  I  don't  actually  go  sinful,  I've 

[62] 


JAVA    HEAD 

had  opportunities,  and  being  good  hasn't  offered  me  much, 
has  it?" 

"  You  are  naturally  a  good  girl,  Nettie,"  Rhoda  an 
swered  simply;  "but  you  must  be  braver  than  ordinary. 
If  we  think  differently  from  Salem  still  it  is  in  Salem  we 
must  live;  I  keep  many  of  my  beliefs  secret  just  as  you 
must  control  most  of  your  feelings." 

The  other  responded  with  a  hard  little  laugh.  "  Thank 
you,  though.  You  are  more  like  Gerrit,  Captain  Am- 
midon,  than  Mrs.  Saltonstone,  his  own  sister.  I  hate  her," 
she  declared.  "  I  hate  all  the  Salem  women,  so  superior 
and  condescending  and  Christian.  They  always  have  a 
silly  look  of  wonder  at  their  charity  in  speaking  to  me 
.  .  .  when  they  do.  They  act  as  if  it's  just  a  privilege 
for  me  to  be  in  their  church.  I'd  rather  go  to  a  cotillion 
at  Hamilton  Hall  any  day." 

"  Of  course  you  would,"  Rhoda  agreed.  There  seemed 
to  be  so  little  for  her  to  offer  or  say  that  she  was  relieved 
when  they  parted.  The  afternoon  grew  really  sultry,  but, 
when  the  shadows  had  lengthened,  she  encountered  Jeremy 
Ammidon  wandering  aimlessly  about  the  hall  and,  his 
fine  palmetto  hat  and  wanghee  in  her  hand,  urged  him  out 
to  the  East  India  Marine  Society.  "  It's  much  too  beau 
tiful  a  day  for  the  house,"  she  insisted. 

"There's  nothing  remarkable  about  it,"  he  returned; 
"  wind's  too  light  and  variable,  hardly  enough  to  hold 
way  on  a  ship."  There  were  the  stirring  strains  of  a 
quickstep  without;  at  the  door  they  saw  the  Salem  Cadets, 
preceded  by  Flag's  Band,  marching  in  columns  of  fours 
into  Washington  Square.  The  white  breeches  with  scarlet 
coats  and  brass  buttons  made  a  gay  showing  on  the  green 

[63] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Common,  the  sunlight  glittered  on  silver  braid  and  tassels, 
gilt  and  pompons,  scaled  chin  straps  and  varnished 
leather. 

The  old  man's  face  grew  dark  at  the  brilliant  line  drawn 
up  for  inspection,  and  he  muttered  a  period  about  cursed 
young  Whigs.  "  Wouldn't  have  one  of  the  scoundrels  in 
my  house  if  I  could  help  it.  Don't  understand  William; 
he's  too  damned  mild  for  my  idea  of  a  good  citizen. 

"  Why,  it's  only  reasonable  that  a  country's  got  to  be  run 
like  a  ship,  from  the  quarter-deck.  How  far  do  you  sup 
pose  a  vessel  would  get  if  the  crew  hung  about  aft  and 
chose  representatives  from  the  port  and  starboard  watches 
and  galley  for  a  body  to  lay  the  course  and  make  sail?  " 

"  Please,  father,"  she  protested,  laughing.  "  Do  go 
along  into  the  sun."  She  gently  pushed  him  toward  the 
door.  Rhoda  realized  the  fact  that  William  was  more 
than  half  Whig  already.  That  threatened  still  another 
point  of  difference,  of  departure,  from  all  that  his  father 
held  to  be  sacred  necessities.  Jeremy,  like  most  of  the 
older  shipmasters,  was  a  bitter  Federalist,  an  upholder  of 
a  strongly  centralized  autocratic  government.  He  left, 
grumbling,  and  the  staccato  commands  of  the  military  evo 
lutions  on  the  Common  rang  through  the  slumberous  after 
noon. 

She  lingered  in  the  doorway  and  Laurel  appeared, 
jigging  with  excitement. 

"  Can't  I  get  nearer,"  she  begged;  "there's  nothing  to 
see  from  here."  Her  mother  replied,  "  Ask  Camilla  to 
take  you  over  to  the  Square."  Camilla  appeared  indif 
ferently.  "  I  don't  know  why  anyone  should  be  flustered," 

[64]   ' 


JAVA    HEAD 

she  observed;  "  it  isn't  like  the  Fourth  of  July  with  a 
concert  and  fireworks." 

As  they  were  going,  Sidsall  came  out  in  a  white  tarlatan 
dress  worked  with  sprays  of  yellow  barley,  her  face  glowing 
with  color,  and  sat  on  the  steps.  "  Positively,"  her  mother 
said,  looking  down  on  the  mass  of  bright  chestnut  hair  in 
a  chenille  net,  "  we'll  soon  have  to  have  you  up  in  braids." 

"  I  wish  I  might,"  she  responded.  "  And  Hodie  is  too 
silly  —  I  can't  get  her  to  lace  me  tightly  enough.  She 
says  such  things  are  engines  of  the  devil." 

"  It's  still  a  little  soon  for  that  — "  Rhoda  broke  off 
as  a  slight  erect  man  at  the  verge  of  middle  age  turned  in 
from  Pleasant  Street  upon  them.  "  Roger,"  she  said  cor 
dially  as  he  came  quickly  up  the  steps.  He  greeted  her 
lightly  and  bent  over  Sidsall  with  an  extended  hand: 

"  The  apple  blossoms,  I  see,  are  here." 

Rhoda  wondered  what  nonsense  Roger  Brevard  was  re 
peating;  Sidsall's  face  was  hidden  from  view.  But  then 
Roger  was  always  like  that,  his  manner  was  never  at  a 
loss  for  the  appropriate  gesture.  He  had  a  great  many 
points  in  common  with  her,  she  thought;  neither  had  been 
born  in  Salem,  and  his  rightful  setting  was  in  the  best 
metropolitan  drawing-rooms.  He  had  been  here  for  a 
dozen  years,  now,  in  charge  of  the  local  affairs  of  the  Mon 
golian  Marine  Insurance  Company;  and  she  often  won 
dered  why,  a  member  of  a  family  socially  notable  in  New 
York,  he  continued  in  a  city,  a  position,  of  comparative 
unimportance. 

She  was,  she  said,  going  back  to  the  lawn,  the  glare  of 
Pleasant  Street  was  fatiguing;  and  she  proceeded  through 

[65] 


JAVA,    HEAD 

the  house  with  the  surety  of  his  following.  But  on  the 
close-cut  emerald  sod  there  was  no  sign  of  him,  and  she 
found  a  seat  in  a  basket  chair  by  the  willow  tree  beyond. 
She  waited  for  Roger  with  a  small  but  growing  impatience; 
he  must  be  done  immediately  with  whatever  he  might  say 
to  Sidsall,  and  she  wished  to  discuss  the  possibilities  of  a 
rumor  that  President  Polk  intended  to  visit  Salem.  There 
would  be  a  collation,  perhaps  a  military  ball,  to  arrange; 
Franklin  Hall  would  be  the  better  place  for  the  latter. 
She  heard  a  faint  silvery  echo  of  laughter  —  Sidsall.  It 
was  extremely  nice,  of  course,  in  Roger  Brevard  to  enter 
tain  her  daughter,  though  she  didn't  care  to  have  the 
child  give  the  effect  of  receiving  men  yet. 

It  was,  finally,  Sidsall  who  appeared,  unaccompanied, 
in  the  drawing-room  window.  She  came  forward  to  where 
Rhoda  sat,  her  face  still  stirred  with  amusement.  "  Mr. 
Brevard  went  on,"  she  said  in  response  to  her  mother's 
look  of  inquiry.  "  That's  rather  odd,"  the  latter  com 
mented  almost  sharply.  "  He  had  only  a  few  minutes," 
the  girl  explained.  She  sank  into  a  seat  and  mood  of  ab 
straction.  Rhoda  studied  her  with  a  veiled  glance.  Hers 
were  exceptional  children,  they  had  given  her  scarcely  an 
hour's  concern;  and  she  must  see  that  in  the  unsettling 
period  which  Sidsall  was  now  entering  she  was  not  spoiled. 

Perhaps  Laurel  entertained  her  more  than  the  others. 
She  was  a  very  normal  little  girl,  not  thoughtful  like 
Janet,  and  without  Camilla's  exaggerated  poise;  but  she 
had  a  picturesque  imagination;  and  her  companionship 
with  her  grandfather  was  delightful.  The  latter  addressed 
her  quite  as  if  she  were  a  fellow  shipmaster;  and  she 
had  acquired  some  remarkable  sea  expressions,  some  de~ 

[66] 


JAVA    HEAD 

plorable  and  others  enigmatic:  only  to-day,  questioned 
about  the  order  of  her  room,  she  had  said  that  it  was  "  all 
square  by  the  lifts  and  braces."  For  this  her  grandfather 
had  given  her  a  gold  piece. 

There  was,  she  knew,  an  excellent  school  for  older  girls 
at  Lausanne;  and,  revolving  the  possibility  of  obtaining 
for  Sidsall  some  of  the  European  advantages  she,  Rhoda, 
had  enjoyed,  the  following  afternoon  she  drove  to  the  Clif 
fords'  on  Marlboro  Street  for  a  consultation  with  Madra, 
who  had  spent  a  number  of  seasons  on  Lake  Leman.  In  a 
cool  parlor  with  yellow  Tibet  rugs  and  maroon  hangings 
she  had  tea  while  Madra  Clifford,  thin  and  imperious, 
with  a  settled  ill  health  like  white  powder  and  a  price 
less  Risajii  shawl,  conversed  in  a  shrill  key. 

"  Caroline  has  been  in  bed  for  a  week.  That  vulgar 
Dr.  Fisk,  with  his  elbow  in  her  bosom,  tried  five  times  to 
extract  her  tooth,  and  then  broke  it  to  the  roots.  I  hear 
there  is  a  galvanic  ring  for  rheumatism.  The  pain  in  my 
joints  is  excruciating;  I  have  an  idea  my  bones  are 
changing  into  chalk;  the  right  knee  will  hardly  bend." 
The  darkly  colored  shawl  with  its  border  of  cypress  inten 
sified  her  sunken  blue-traced  temples  and  the  pallid  lips. 
She  developed  the  subject  of  her  indisposition,  sparing 
no  detail;  while  Rhoda  Ammidon,  from  her  superabun 
dance  of  well-being,  half  pitied  the  other  and  was  half 
revolted  at  the  mind  touched,  too,  by  bodily  ill.  The  for 
tune  accumulated  by  the  hardy  Clifford  men,  flogged  out  of 
crews  and  stained  by  the  blood  of  primitive  and  dull  sav 
ages —  the  Cliffords  were  notorious  for  their  brutal  driv 
ing —  now  served  only  to  support  Madra's  debility  and  a 
horde  of  unscrupulous  panderers  to  her  obsession. 

[67] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Edward  Dunsack  is  in  Salem,"  she  continued;  "  and 
I've  heard  he  has  the  most  peculiar  appearance.  Very 
probably  the  result  of  the  unmentionable  practices  of  the 
Orient.  Father  liked  the  Chinese  though ;  so  many  of  our 
shipmasters  have,  and  not  always  the  merchants.  .  .  . 
What  was  I  saying?  Oh,  yes,  Edward  Dunsack.  I  un 
derstand  you  had  a  distinct  alarm  in  that  quarter,  about 
the  girl  and  Gerrit  Ammidon.  But  I  forgot  to  say  how 
glad  I  am  about  Gerrit.  You  must  have  been  horribly 
worried  — " 

"  What  do  you  mean?  "  Rhoda  demanded. 

"  Why,  haven't  you  heard !  The  Nautilus  was  sighted. 
News  came  from  Boston.  She  ought  to  be  in  to-day,  I  be 
lieve.  I  suppose  William  has  been  too  concerned  to  get 
you  word  at  home." 

Rhoda  Ammidon  rose  immediately,  surprised  at  the  force 
of  the  emotion  that  blurred  her  eyes  with  tears.  Gerrit 
was  safe !  Possibly  they  had  been  told  at  Java  Head  now, 
but  she  must  be  there  with  Jeremy  Ammidon;  surprises, 
even  as  joyful  as  this,  were  a  great  strain  on  him.  Neg 
lecting  the  object  of  her  visit  she  returned  at  once  to 
Pleasant  Street,  urging  the  coachman  to  an  undignified 
haste,  and  keeping  the  carriage  at  the  door. 

Her  father-in-law  was  at  his  secretary  in  the  library, 
and  it  was  evident  that  he  had  heard  nothing  of  his  son's 
return.  "  Well,  Rhoda,"  he  said,  swinging  about;  "  what 
a  bright  cheek  you  have  —  like  Laurel's." 

"  I  feel  bright,  father,"  she  replied  with  a  nod  and  smile. 
"  After  this  none  of  you  will  be  able  to  laugh  at  my  pre 
dictions.  You  see,  a  woman's  feeling  is  often  more  correct 
than  masculine  judgment."  His  momentary  bewilderment 

[68] 


JAVA    HEAD 

gave  place  to  a  painfully  strained  interrogation.  "  Yes," 
she  told  him,  "  but  we  are  none  of  us  surprised  —  Gerrit 
is  almost  in  Salem  harbor."  She  moved  near  him  and, 
with  a  veiled  anxiety,  laid  her  hand  upon  his  shoulder. 

"  A  splendid  sailor,"  he  muttered.  It  seemed  as  if 
Rhoda  could  really  hear  the  dull  rising  pounding  of  his 
shaken  heart.  But  his  excitement  subsided,  gave  way  to 
a  normal  concern,  a  flood  of  vain  questions  and  prepara 
tion  to  go  down  to  the  wharf.  In  the  midst  of  this  a 
message  came  from  the  countinghouse  of  Ammidon,  Am- 
midon  and  Saltonstone  that  the  Nautilus  would  dock 
within  an  hour. 

A  small  crowd  had  already  gathered  on  Derby  Wharf 
when  Rhoda  and  her  companion  made  their  way  past  the 
warehouses  built  at  intervals  along  the  wharf  to  the  place 
where  the  Nautilus  would  be  warped  in.  The  wharfinger 
saluted  them,  William  Ammidon  joined  his  wife,  and 
beyond  she  could  see  James  Saltonstone  conversing  with 
the  Surveyor  of  the  Port. 

The  afternoon  was  serene,  a  faint  air  drew  in  from  the 
sea;  and  with  it,  sweeping  slowly  inside  Peach's  Point, 
was  the  tall  ship  with  her  canvas  towering  gold  in  the 
western  sun  against  the  distance  of  sea  and  sky.  As 
Rhoda  watched  she  saw  their  house  flag  —  a  white  field 
checkered  in  blue  —  fluttering  from  the  main  royal  truck. 

"The  royals  are  coming  in!"  Jeremy  Ammidon  ex 
claimed,  gripping  Rhoda's  arm.  "  He  is  lowering  his  top 
gallant  yards  and  hauling  up  the  courses!  My  dear, 
there's  nothing  on  God's  earth  finer  than  a  ship." 

The  Nautilus  slipped  along  surprisingly  fast.  Rhoda 
could  now  see  the  crew  moving  about  and  coiling  the  gear. 

[69] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Look,  father,  there's  Gerrit  on  the  quarter-deck." 

The  shipmaster,  shorter  than  common,  with  broad  asser 
tive  shoulders  in  formal  black,  was  easily  recognizable. 
A  woman  with  a  worn  flushed  face  pressed  by  Jeremy. 
"  Andrew's  there,  too,"  she  told  them,  "  Mr.  Broadrick,  the 
mate." 

The  ship  moved  more  slowly,  under  her  topsails  and 
jibs,  in  a  soundless  progress  with  the  ripples  falling  away 
in  water  like  dark  green  glass,  liquid  and  still.  She  was 
now  but  a  short  distance  from  the  end  of  the  wharf.  Mr. 
Broadrick  was  forward  between  the  knightheads  with  the 
crew  ranged  to  the  starboard  and  at  the  braces,  while  Ger 
rit  Ammidon  stood  with  one  hand  on  the  quarter-deck 
railing  and  the  other  holding  a  brass  speaking  trumpet 
to  his  lips: 

"  Let  go  your  port  fore  and  after  braces,  Mr.  Broadrick; 
brace  the  fore  and  mizzen  yards  sharp  up,  leave  the  main 
braces  fast,  and  lay  the  main  topsail  to  the  mast.  As  she 
comes  to  the  wind  let  the  jibs  run  down."  He  turned  to 
the  man  at  the  wheel,  "  Helm  hard  a  starboard." 

"  Hard  a  starboard,  sir." 

The  ship  answered  quickly  and  rounded  to  while  her 
weather  fore  and  mizzen  yards  flew  forward  until  they 
touched  the  starboard  backstays  and  the  men  hauled  in 
the  slack  of  the  braces.  With  the  main  yard  square  to 
check  her  way  the  jibs  drooped  down  along  the  stays. 
"  Mr.  Broadrick,  you  may  let  go  the  starboard  anchor  and 
furl  sails."  The  mate  grasped  a  top  maul  and  struck  the 
trigger  of  the  ring  stopper  a  clean  blow,  the  anchor 
splashed  into  the  water  with  a  rumbling  cable,  and  the 
Nautilus  was  home. 

[70] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Gerrit  Ammidon  walked  hurriedly  to  the  companionway 
and  went  below,  while  the  mate  continued,  "  Stand  by  to 
let  go  your  topsail  halliards  and  man  the  gear.  Sharper 
with  the  mizzen  sheets  and  unbend  those  clew  lines  and 
garnets  .  .  .  stow  the  clews  in  a  harbor  furl."  At  a 
rhythmic  shout  the  bunts  of  the  three  topsails  came  up 
together. 

The  wind  had  died  away  and  the  flags  hung  listlessly 
from  the  main  truck  and  spanker  gaff.  The  water  of 
the  harbor  was  unstirred  except  for  the  swirls  at  the  oar 
blades  of  an  incoming  quarter  boat  and  the  warp  paying 
out  at  her  stern.  The  voice  of  the  mate,  the  chantey  of 
the  crew  heaving  at  the  capstan  bars,  came  to  Rhoda  sub 
dued: 

"  The  times  are  hard  and  wages  low, 

Oh,  leave  her,  Johnny,  leave  her. 
I  guess  it's  time  for  us  to  go, 

Oh,  leave  her,  Johnny,  leave  her. 
I  thought  I  heard  the  old  man  say, 

Oh,  leave  her,  Johnny,  leave  her. 
To-morrow  we  will  get  our  pay 

leave  her." 

Rhoda  Ammidon  discovered  herself  leaning  forward 
tensely,  her  hands  shut  in  excitement  and  emotion ;  and  she 
relaxed  with  a  happy  laugh  as  the  Nautilus,  with  her  yards 
exactly  square  and  rigging  taut,  her  sides  and  figurehead 
and  ports  bright  with  newly  laid  on  paint,  moved  to  the 
wharf. 

It  seemed  to  her  that  Gerrit,  descending  a  short  stage 
from  the  deck,  looked  markedly  older  than  when  he  had 
last  sailed.  Yet  he  had  a  surprisingly  youthful  air  still; 

[71] 


JAVA    HEAD 

partly,  she  thought,  from  the  manner  in  which  he  wore 
his  hair,  falling  in  a  waving  thick  line  about  his  cheeks. 
His  mouth  was  at  once  fresh  and  severe,  his  face  clean 
shaven,  and  his  eyes  —  if  possible  —  more  directly  blue 
than  ever. 

"  I'll  take  the  ship's  manifest  to  the  Collector,"  he  said, 
greeting  them  and  impatiently  waving  aside  the  vendors 
after  the  cook's  slush,  the  excited  women  and  runners  and 
human  miscellany  crowding  forward.  "  Then  Java 
Head."  He  paused,  speaking  over  his  shoulder:  "  I'd 
be  thankful  if  you  would  send  the  barouche  down  in  an 
hour  or  so." 

Driving  back,  her  hand  on  Jeremy  Ammidon's  knee, 
Rhoda  wondered  at  Gerrit's  request.  It  was  entirely  un 
like  him  to  ride  in  the  barouche;  rather  he  had  always 
derided  it  in  the  terms  of  his  calling.  However,  unable 
to  find  a  solution  for  her  surprise,  she  listened  to  the 
other's  comments  and  speculations: 

"  I  suppose  William's  first  question  will  be  about  the 
cargo,  and,  of  course,  I  hope  the  ship  has  done  well.  But 
I'm  just  glad  to  have  Gerrit  back;  I  am  for  a  fact,  Rhoda." 

"  We  all  are,"  she  assured  him,  "  and  William  as  happy 
as  any.  You  mustn't  be  misled  by  his  manner,  father.  I 
hope  the  supper  will  be  good  and  please  you." 

"  Gerrit  will  be  satisfied  with  anything,"  he  chuckled. 
"  Probably  he's  been  out  of  beans  even  for  a  month.  Did 
you  notice  that  fore-royal  mast  and  yard?  They  were 
rigged  at  sea:  Gerrit  carried  them  away.  It  hurts  him  to 
take  in  a  sail.  Some  day  I  tell  him  he'll  drag  the  spars 
out  of  his  ship.  His  confounded  pride  will  founder  him." 
He  made  these  charges  lightly,  with  a  palpable  underly- 

[72] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ing  pride;  and,  Rhoda  knew,  would  permit  no  one  else  to 
criticize  his  son. 

She  found  her  daughters  in  a  state  of  gala  excitement 
on  the  front  steps.  "  Uncle  Gerrit  in  the  Nautilus" 
Laurel  chanted;  and  it  was  evident  that  Camilla  herself 
was  thrilled.  They  all  went  up  to  put  on  holiday  dress. 
Rhoda  turned  to  the  coachman,  "  Have  the  barouche  at 
the  head  of  Derby  Wharf  in  an  hour." 

Gerrit's  unusual  demand  again  puzzled  her.  A  fan 
tastic  possibility  lodged  in  her  brain  —  perhaps  he  was  not 
alone.  She  pulled  the  bell  rope  for  her  maid,  changed 
into  black  moire  with  cut  steel  bretelles,  and  selected  the 
peacock  coloring  of  a  Peri-taus  shawl.  She  found  her 
husband  with  his  father  in  the  library.  "  I  understand 
it's  a  splendid  cargo,"  William  remarked.  Jeremy  nodded 
triumphantly  at  her,  and  she  expressed  a  half  humorous 
resentment  at  this  mercenary  display.  "  He  ought  to  be 
here,"  the  younger  man  declared,  consulting  his  watch. 
As  he  spoke  Rhoda  saw  the  barouche  draw  up  before  the 
house.  She  had  a  glimpse  of  a  figure  at  Gerrit  Am- 
midon's  side  in  extravagantly  brilliant  satins;  there  was  a 
sibilant  whisper  of  rich  materials  in  the  hall,  and  the  mas 
ter  entered  the  library  with  a  pale  set  face. 

"  Father,"  he  said,  "  Rhoda  and  William,  allow  me  — 
my  wife,  Taou  Yuen." 

Rhoda  Ammidon  gave  an  uncontrollable  gasp  as  the 
Chinese  woman  sank  in  a  fluttering  prostration  of  color 
at  Jeremy's  feet.  He  ejaculated,  "  God  bless  me,"  and 
started  back.  William's  face  was  inscrutable,  unguessed 
lines  appeared  about  his  severe  mouth.  Her  own  sensa 
tion  was  one  of  incredulity  touched  with  mounting  anger 

[73] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  feeling  of  outrage.  The  woman  rose,  but  only  to  sink 
again  before  William:  she  was  on  her  knees  and,  sup 
ported  by  her  hands,  bent  forward  and  touched  her  fore 
head  to  the  floor  three  times.  Gerrit  laughed  shortly. 
"  She  was  to  shake  your  hands;  we  went  over  and  over 
it  on  shipboard.  But  anything  less  than  the  Ku  Von  was 
too  casual  for  her." 

She  was  now  erect  with  a  freer  murmur  of  greeting  to 
Rhoda.  The  latter  was  instantly  aware  of  one  certainty 
—  Chinese  she  might  be,  she  was,  but  no  less  absolutely 
aristocratic.  Her  face,  oval  and  slightly  flat,  was  plas 
tered  with  paint  on  paint,  but  her  gesture,  the  calm  scru 
tiny  of  enigmatic  black  eyes  under  delicately  arched  brows, 
exquisite  quiet  hands,  were  all  under  the  most  admirable 
instinctive  command.  Rhoda  said: 

"  I  see  that  I  am  to  welcome  you  for  Gerrit's  family." 
The  other,  in  slow  lisping  English  replied : 

"  Thank  you  greatly.  I  am  humbled  to  the  earth  before 
your  goodness." 

"  You  will  want  to  go  to  your  room,"  Rhoda  continued 
mechanically.  "  It  was  only  prepared  for  one,  but  I'll 
send  a  servant  up  at  once."  She  was  enraged  at  the  silent 
stupidity  of  the  three  men  and  flashed  a  silent  command 
at  her  husband. 

"  This  is  a  decided  surprise,"  the  latter  at  last  addressed 
his  brother;  "  nor  can  I  pretend  that  it  is  pleasant."  Jer 
emy  Ammidon's  gaze  wandered  blankly  from  Gerrit  to  the 
woman,  then  back  to  his  son. 

Never  before  had  Rhoda  seen  such  lovely  clothes:  A 
long  gown  with  wide  sleeves  of  blue-black  satin,  em 
broidered  in  peach-colored  flower  petals  and  innumerable 

[74] 


JAVA    HEAD 

minute  sapphire  and  orange  butterflies,  a  short  sleeveless 
jacket  of  sage  green  caught  with  looped  red  jade  buttons 
and  threaded  with  silver  and  indigo  high-soled  slippers 
crusted  and  tasseled  with  pearls.  Her  hair  rose  from  the 
back  in  a  smooth  burnished  loop.  There  were  long  pins 
of  pink  jade  carved  into  blossoms,  a  quivering  decoration 
of  paper-thin  gold  leaves  with  moonstones  in  glistening 
drops,  and  a  band  of  coral  lotus  buds.  Pierced  stone 
bracelets  hung  about  her  delicate  wrists,  fretted  crystal 
balls  swung  from  the  lobes  of  her  ears;  and  clasped  on  the 
ends  of  several  fingers  were  long  pointed  filagrees  of  ivory. 

"  Taou  Yuen,"  Gerrit  repeated  shortly,  with  his  chal 
lenging  bright  gaze.  "  That  means  Peach  Garden.  My 
wife  is  a  Manchu,"  he  asserted  in  a  more  biting  tone;  "  a 
Manchu  and  the  daughter  of  a  noble.  Thank  you,  Rhoda, 
particularly.  But  I  have  always  counted  on  you.  Will 
you  go  up  with  her  ?  That  is  if  —  if  my  father  has  a 
room,  a  place,  for  us." 

"  This  will  always  be  your  home,  Gerrit,"  Jeremy  said 
slowly,  with  the  long  breath  of  a  diver  in  deep  waters. 


[75] 


IV 

IN  the  room  that  had  been  his  since  early  maturity 
Gerrit  Ammidon  gave  an  involuntary  sigh  of  relief. 
Taou  Yuen,  his  wife,  was  standing  in  the  middle  of 
the  floor,  gazing  about  with  a  faint  and  polite  smile.  Her 
eyes  rested  on  a  yellow  camphor  chest  —  one  of  the  set 
brought  home  by  his  father  —  on  a  severe  high  range  of 
drawers  made  of  sycamore  with  six  legs,  on  her  brilliant 
reflection  in  the  eagle-crowned  mirror  above  the  mantel, 
and  the  sleigh  bed  with  low  heavily  curved  ends. 

The  situation  below,  however  brief  and,  on  the  whole, 
reasonably  conducted,  had  been  surprisingly  difficult.  At 
the  same  time  that  he  had  felt  no  necessity  to  apologize 
for  his  marriage  he  had  known  that  Taou  Yuen  must 
surprise,  yes  —  shock,  his  family.  She  was  Chinese,  to 
them  a  heathen:  they  would  be  unable  to  comprehend  any 
mitigating  dignity  of  rank.  Where  they'd  actually  suffer, 
he  realized,  would  be  in  the  attitude  of  Salem,  the  stupid 
gabble,  the  censure  and  cold  pity  caused  by  his  wife. 

Personally  he  regarded  these  with  the  contempt  he  felt 
for  so  many  of  the  qualities  that  on  shore  bound  the  inter 
ests  of  everyone  into  a  single  common  concern.  It  gave 
him  pleasure  to  assault  the  authority  and  importance  of 
such  public  prejudice  and  self-opinion;  but,  unavoidably 
implicating  his  family,  at  once  a  part  of  himself  and  Salem, 
he  was  conscious  of  the  fact  that  he  had  laid  them  all  open 

[76] 


JAVA    HEAD 

to  disagreeable  moments.  He  was  sorry  for  this,  and  his 
regret,  principally  materialized  by  his  father's  hurt  confu 
sion,  had  unexpectedly  cast  a  shadow  on  a  scene  to  which 
he  had  looked  forward  with  a  distinct  sense  of  comedy. 
Where  the  realities  were  concerned  he  had  no  fear  of 
Taou  Yuen's  ability  to  justify  herself  completely.  He  pos 
sessed  a  stupendous  admiration  for  her. 

He  watched  her  now  with  the  mingled  understanding 
and  mystification  that  gave  his  life  with  her  such  a  de 
cided  charm.  Her  gaze  had  fastened  on  the  mirror- 
stand  above  the  drawers:  she  must  be  wondering  if  she 
would  have  to  paint  and  prepare  herself  for  him  here, 
openly.  He  knew  that  she  considered  it  a  great  impro 
priety  for  her  face  to  be  seen  bare;  all  the  elaborate  pro 
cesses  of  her  morning  toilet  must  be  privately  conducted. 
He  recognized  this,  but  had  no  idea  what  she  actually 
thought  of  the  room,  of  his  family,  of  the  astonishing 
situation  into  which  her  heart  had  betrayed  her. 

One  and  then  another  early  hope  he  saw  at  once  were 
vain.  It  had  seemed  to  him  that  in  America,  in  Salem, 
she  might  become  less  evidently  Chinese;  not  in  the  incon 
gruous  horror  of  Western  clothes,  but  in  her  attitude,  in  a 
surrender  to  superficial  customs;  he  had  pictured  her  as 
merging  distinctively  into  the  local  scene.  In  China  he 
had  hoped  that  in  the  vicinity  of  Washington  Square  and 
Pleasant  Street  she  would  appear  less  Eastern;  but,  be 
yond  all  doubt,  here  she  was  enormously  more  so.  The 
strange  repressed  surrounding  accentuated  every  detail  of 
her  Manchu  pomp  and  color.  The  frank  splendor  of  her 
satins  and  carved  jades  and  embroidery,  her  immobile 
striking  face  loaded  with  carmine  and  glinting  headdress, 

[77] 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  flawless  loveliness  of  hands  with  the  pointed  nail  pro 
tectors,  were,  in  his  room,  infinitely  dramatized. 

The  other,  less  secure  possibility  that  she  might  essen 
tially  change  perished  silently.  In  a  way  his  wish  had 
been  a  presumption  —  that  a  member  of  the  oldest  and 
most  subtle  civilization  existing  would,  if  she  were  able, 
adopt  such  comparatively  crude  habits  of  life  and  thought. 

She  moved  slowly  up  to  the  bed,  examining  it  curi 
ously;  and  again  he  understood  her  look  of  doubt  —  in 
China  beds  were  called  kang,  or  stoves,  from  the  fact  that 
they  were  more  often  than  not  a  platform  of  brick  with 
an  opening  beneath  for  hot  coals.  She  fingered  the  ball 
fringe  of  the  coverlet,  and  then  turned  with  amazement  to 
the  soft  pillow.  A  hand  with  the  stone  bracelet  falling 
back  from  her  smooth  wrist  rose  to  the  complicated  edifice 
of  her  headdress. 

"  Your  pillow  is  coming  along  from  the  ship,"  he  told 
her;  "  the  women  here  do  up  their  hair  every  morning." 

She  considered  this  with  geranium  lips  slightly  parted 
on  flawless  teeth,  and  nodded  slowly.  The  westering  sun 
striking  through  the  window  overlooking  the  Common 
illuminated  her  with  a  flat  gold  unreality. 

"  I'll  have  a  day  bed  brought  for  you,"  he  continued, 
realizing  that,  as  the  result  of  fortunate  chance,  she  under 
stood  most  of  what  he  said  without  an  actual  command 
of  the  individual  words.  In  reply  she  sank  before  him  in 
the  deep  Manchu  gesture  with  one  knee  sweeping  the  floor, 
the  humility  of  her  posture  dignified  by  grace.  He 
touched  the  crystal  globe  of  an  earring,  pinched  her  chin, 
in  the  half  light  manner  by  which  he  instinctively  ex- 

[78] 


JAVA    HEAD 

pressed  his  affection  for  her.  She  was  calm  and  pleased. 
"  Taou  Yuen,"  he  continued,  "  you  miss  Shanghai,  with 
the  wall  of  ten  gates  and  the  river  Woosung  stuck  full  of 
masts.  You'll  never  think  Salem  is  a  paradise  like  Soo- 
chow." 

"  This  is  your  city,"  she  replied,  slowly  choosing  the 
words.  "  Your  ancestors  are  here."  There  was  not  a 
shade  of  regret  in  her  voice  or  manner.  He  tried  once 
more,  and  as  vainly  as  ever,  to  penetrate  the  veil  of  her 
perfect  serenity.  She  never,  it  became  apparent,  descended 
from  the  most  inflexible  self-control;  small  emotions  — 
surface  gayety  of  mood,  curiosity,  the  faintest  possible  indi 
cation  of  contempt,  he  had  learned  to  distinguish;  the  fact 
that  she  cared  enough  for  him  to  desert  every  familiar 
circumstance  was  evident;  but  beyond  these  he  was  power 
less  to  reach. 

His  own  emotions  were  hardly  less  obscured:  the  domi 
nating  feeling  was  his  admiration  for  her  exquisite  worldly 
wisdom,  the  perfection  of  her  bodily  beauty,  and  the 
philosophy  which  bore  her  above  the  countless  trivialities 
that  destroyed  the  dignity  of  western  minds.  He  realized 
that  her  paint  and  embroidery  covered  a  spirit  as  cold 
and  tempered  as  fine  metal.  She  was  totally  without  the 
social  sentiment  of  his  own  world;  but  she  was  equally 
innocent  of  its  nauseous  hypocrisy,  the  pretensions  of  a 
piety  covering  commercial  dishonesty,  obscenity  of  thought 
and  spreading  scandal.  The  injustice  he  saw  practiced  on 
shore  had  always  turned  him  with  a  sense  of  relief  to  the 
cleansing  challenge  of  the  sea;  always,  brought  in  contact 
with  cunning  and  self-seeking  men  and  heartless  schemes, 

[79] 


JAVA    HEAD 

with  women  cheapened  by  a  conviction  of  the  indecency 
of  life,  he  was  in  a  state  of  hot  indignation.  From  all  this 
Taou  Yuen  offered  a  complete  escape. 

On  the  purely  feminine  side  she  was  a  constant  delight, 
the  last  possible  refinement,  he  told  himself,  of  instinct  and 
effect.  She  was  incapable  of  the  least  vulgarity;  never  for 
an  instant  did  she  flag  from  the  necessity  of  beauty,  never 
had  he  seen  her  too  weary  for  an  adornment  laborious  in 
a  hundred  difficult  conventions.  She  was,  too,  a  continu 
ous  source  of  entertainment,  even  as  his  wife  she  never 
ceased  to  be  a  spectacle ;  his  consciousness  of  her  as  a  being 
outside  himself  persisted. 

"  I  must  go  down  and  see  where  our  things  are,"  he  said, 
rising.  In  the  hall  he  stopped  before  the  tall  clock  whose 
striking  was  a  part  of  his  early  memories.  Below,  the 
house  seemed  empty;  and,  instead  of  turning  to  the  front 
door  and  his  purpose,  he  went  into  the  drawing-room. 

The  long  glass  doors  to  the  garden  were  open,  and  the 
interior  was  filled  with  the  scent  of  lilacs.  The  room 
itself  had  always  reminded  him  of  them  —  it  was  pale  in 
color,  cool  gilt  and  lavender  brocade  and  white  panels. 
Nothing  had  been  moved  or  changed:  the  inlaid  cylinder 
fall  desk  with  its  garlands  of  painted  flowers  on  the  light 
waxed  wood  stood  at  the  left,  the  pole  screen  with  the  em 
broidered  bouquet  was  before  the  fire  blind,  the  girandoles, 
scrolled  in  ormolu  and  hung  with  crystal  lusters,  held  the 
shimmer  of  golden  reflections  on  the  walls. 

He  had  remembered  the  drawing-room  at  Java  Head  as 
a  place  of  enchanted  perfection;  in  his  childhood  its  still 
serenity  had  seemed  a  presentment  of  what  might  be  hoped 
for  in  heaven.  The  thought  of  the  room  as  it  was  now, 

[80] 


JAVA    HEAD 

open  but  a  little  dim  to  the  lilacs  and  warm  afternoon, 
had  haunted  him  as  the  measure  of  all  peace  and  serenity 
in  moments  of  extreme  danger,  his  ship  laboring  in  ele 
mental  catastrophes  and  in  remote  seas.  Its  fragance  had 
touched  him  through  the  miasma  of  Whampoa  Reach, 
waiting  for  the  lighters  of  tea  to  float  down  from  Canton; 
standing  off  in  the  thunder  squalls  of  the  night  for  the 
morning  sea  breeze  to  take  him  into  Rio;  over  a  cognac  in 
the  coffee  stalls  of  the  French  market  at  New  Orleans,  the 
chanteys  ringing  from  the  cotton  gangs  along  the  levees : 

"  Were  you  ever  down  in  Mobile  Bay? 
Aye,  aye,  pump  away." 

As  he  left  the  room  he  saw  Laurel,  William's  youngest 
child,  and  he  imprisoned  her  in  an  arm.  "  You  haven't 
asked  what  I've  got  for  you  in  my  sea  chest,"  he  said. 
Gerrit  was  very  fond  of  all  four  of  the  rosy-cheeked 
vigorous  girls,  and  a  sense  of  injury  touched  him  at 
Laurel's  reserved  manner.  She  studied  him  with  a  won 
dering  uneasy  concern.  This  he  realized  was  the  result 
of  bringing  home  Taou  Yuen;  and  an  aggravated  impa 
tience,  a  growing  rebellion,  seized  him.  He  wouldn't  stay 
with  his  wife  at  Java  Head  a  day  longer  than  necessary; 
and  if  anyone,  in  his  family  or  outside,  showed  the  slight 
est  disdain  he  could  retaliate  with  his  knowledge  of  local 
pettiness,  the  backbiting  enmities  and  secret  lapses. 

God  knew  he  didn't  want  trouble,  all  he  asked  was  a 
reasonable  liberty,  the  semblance,  anyhow,  of  a  courtesy 
toward  his  wife.  Whatever  might  be  said  would  be  of  no 
moment  to  her  —  except  in  the  attitude  of  his  father  — 
and  Taou  Yuen's  indifference  furnished  a  splendid  ex- 

[81] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ample  for  himself.  He  wondered  why  the  devil  he  was 
continually  putting  his  fingers  in  affairs  that  couldn't  con 
cern  him.  No  one  thanked  him  for  his  trouble,  they  con 
sidered  him  something  of  a  fool  —  a  good  sailor  but  pe 
culiar.  The  damned  unexpected  twists  of  his  sense  of  the 
absurd,  too,  got  him  into  constant  difficulty. 

His  father  was  standing  outside  the  principal  entrance; 
and,  as  he  joined  him  on  the  steps,  he  saw  two  men  from 
the  Nautilus  carrying  his  ship's  desk  by  the  beckets  let  in 
the  ends.  The  wind  was  blowing  gently  up  Pleasant 
Street;  the  men,  at  his  gesture,  lifted  their  burden  up  the 
steps,  between  the  direction  of  the  wind  and  Jeremy  Am- 
midon.  The  latter  rose  instantly  into  one  of  his  dark 
rages: 

"  What  do  you  mean,  you  damned  packetrats  —  coming 
up  a  companionway  to  the  windward  of  me!  I'll  have  no 
whalers'  habits  here."  He  repeated  discontentedly  that 
everything  on  sea  and  land  had  fallen  into  a  decline. 
Others  followed  with  a  number  of  Korean  boxes,  strapped 
and  locked  with  copper,  and  wicker  baskets.  A  man  in 
charge  said  to  Gerrit  Ammidon: 

"  The  chest  was  left  for  Mr.  Dunsack  at  the  foot  of 
Hardy  Street,  sir,  as  you  ordered.  The  inspector  sent 
it  off  complimentary  with  your  personal  things."  Gerrit 
asked,  "  He  didn't  stop  to  get  a  whiff  of  it  then?  "  The 
other  shook  his  head.  "  Edward  Dunsack  asked  me  to 
ship  it  here  and  explained  that  it  was  only  junk  he  was 
bringing  home,  but  what  it  amounts  to  is  about  a  case 
of  Patna  opium.  He's  lucky." 

They  turned  inside,  William  was  in  the  library,  and 
[82] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Gerrit  instinctively  followed  his  father  into  the  room. 
William  surveyed  him  with  a  moody  discontent.  "  What 
I  can't  understand,"  he  proceeded;  "  is  why  you  call  it  a 
marriage,  why  you  brought  your  woman  here  to  us,  to 
Rhoda  and  the  children." 

"It's  simple  enough,"  Gerrit  replied;  "  Taou  Yuen  is 
my  wife,  we  are  married  exactly  as  Rhoda  and  you  are. 
She  is  not  my  woman  in  the  sense  you  mean.  I  won't 
allow  that,  William." 

"  How  can  it  matter  what  you  will  or  will  not  allow 
when  everyone'll  think  the  other?  Shipmasters  have  had 
Chinese  mistresses  before,  yes,  and  smuggled  them  into 
Salem;  but  this  conduct  of  yours  is  beyond  speech." 

Gerrit  Ammidon  said: 

"  Don't  carry  this  too  far."  Anger  like  a  hot  cloud 
oppressed  him.  "I  am  married  legally  and,  if  anything, 
by  a  ceremony  less  preposterous  than  your  own.  Taou 
Yuen  is  not  open  to  any  man  or  woman's  suspicions.  I 
am  overwhelmingly  indebted  to  her." 

"  But  she's  not  your  race,"  William  Ammidon  muttered; 
"  she  is  a  Confucian  or  Taoist,  or  some  such  thing." 

"  You're  Unitarian  one  day  a  week,  and  father  is  Con 
gregational,  Hodie's  a  Methodist,  and  no  one  knows  what 
I  am,"  Gerrit  cried.  "Good  God,  what  does  all  that 
matter!  Isn't  a  religion  a  religion?  Do  you  suppose  a 
Lord  worth  the  name  would  be  anything  but  entertained 
by  such  spiteful  little  dogmas.  A  sincere  greased  nigger 
with  his  voodoo  must  be  as  good  as  any  of  us." 

"  That  is  too  strong,  Gerrit,"  Jeremy  objected.  "  You'll 
get  nowhere  crying  down  Christianity." 

[83] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  If  I  could  find  it,"  the  younger  declared  bitterly,  "  I'd 
feel  differently.  It's  right  enough  in  the  Bible.  .  .  . 
Well,  we'll  go  on  to  Boston  to-morrow." 

"  This  is  your  home,"  his  father  repeated.  "  Naturally 
William,  all  of  us  have  been  disturbed;  but  nothing  be 
yond  that.  I  trust  we  are  a  loyal  family.  What  you've 
done  can't  be  mended  with  hard  words." 

"  She  may  become  very  fashionable,"  Gerrit  mockingly 
told  his  brother.  "  It'll  be  a  blow  to  Camilla,"  Jeremy 
chuckled.  "  Some  rice  must  be  cooked." 

"  Manchus  don't  live  on  rice,"  Gerrit  replied.  "  They 
don't  bind  the  feet  either  nor  wear  the  common  Chinese 
clothes.  Rhoda  will  understand  better." 

Again  in  his  room  he  found  his  wife  bending  over  a 
gorgeous  heap  of  satins,  bright  mazarines  and  ornaments. 
"  We'll  go  down  to  supper  soon,"  he  told  her.  Already 
there  were  signs  of  her  presence  about  the  room:  the  chest 
of  drawers  was  covered  with  gold  and  jade  and  green  am 
ber,  painted  paper  fans  set  on  ivory  and  tortoise  shell,  and 
lacquer  fan  boxes;  coral  hairpins,  sandalwood  combs, 
silver  rouge  pots  and  rose  quartz  perfume  bottles  with 
canary  silk  cords  and  tassels.  On  a  familiar  table  was 
her  pipe,  wound  in  gilt  wire,  and  the  flowered  satin  to 
bacco  case.  An  old  coin  was  hanging  at  the  head  of  the 
bed,  a  charm  against  evil  spirits;  and  on  a  stand  was  the 
amethyst  image  of  Kuan-Yin  pu  tze,  the  Goddess  of  Mercy. 

Taou  Yuen  sank  on  the  floor  with  a  little  embarrassed 
laugh  at  the  confusion  in  which  he  had  surprised  her. 
"  Let  your  attitude  be  grave,"  he  quoted  from  the  Book  of 
Rites  with  a  pretended  severity.  Her  amusement  rose  in 
a  ripple  of  mirth.  He  opened  his  desk,  rearranging  the 

[84] 


JAVA    HEAD 

disorder  brought  about  by  its  transportation ;  and,  when  he 
turned,  she  was  prostrate  in  the  last  rays  of  the  sun.  "  O- 
me-to-Fuh,"  she  breathed;  "  O-me-to-Fuh"  the  invocation 
to  Buddha.  This  at  an  end  she  announced,  "  Now  I  am 
grave  and  respectful  for  your  family." 

Supper,  Gerrit  admitted  to  himself,  promised  to  be  a 
painful  occasion;  conversation  rose  sporadically  and 
quickly  died  in  glances  of  irrepressible  curiosity  directed 
at  his  wife.  She,  on  the  contrary,  showed  no  pointed 
interest  in  her  surroundings ;  and,  in  her  hesitating  slurred 
English,  answered  Rhoda's  few  questions  without  putting 
any  in  return.  Camilla  preserved  a  frozen  silence;  Sid- 
sail  was  pleasantly  conciliating  in  her  attitude  toward  the 
novel  situation;  Janet,  her  lips  moving  noiselessly,  was 
rapt  in  amazement;  and  Laurel  smiled,  abashed  at  meet 
ing  Taou  Yuen's  eyes. 

The  recounting  of  his  delayed  return  offered  Gerrit  a 
welcome  relief  from  the  pervading  strain:  "There's  no 
tea  to  speak  of  at  Shanghai,  and  I  took  on  a  mixed  cargo 
—  pongees  and  porcelain  and  matting.  I  got  camphor 
and  cassia  and  seven  hundred  peculs  of  ginger;  then  I 
decided  to  lay  a  course  to  Manilla  for  some  of  the 
cheroots  father  likes.  The  weather  was  fine,  I  had  a  good 
cargo,  and,  well  —  we  pleasured  out  to  Honolulu.  I  was 
riding  the  island  horses  and  shipping  oil  when  the 
schooner  Kahemameha  arrived  from  the  coast  with  the 
news  of  the  gold  discovery  in  California.  Every  boat  in 
the  harbor  was  loaded  to  the  trucks,  crowded  with  passen 
gers  at  their  weight  in  ginseng,  and  laid  for  San  Francisco. 
...  Well,  I  was  caught  with  the  rest. 

"  Five  thousand  dollars  was  offered  me  to  carry  a  gen- 
[85] 


JAVA    HEAD 

tleman  and  his  attendant.  Two  others  would  pay  three 
for  the  same  purpose.  Stowage  was  worth  what  you  asked. 
.  .  .  The  Nautilus  made  a  good  run;  then,  about  a  day 
from  land,  Mr.  Broadrick  told  me  that  there  wouldn't  be  a 
seaman  on  the  ship  an  hour  after  we  anchored.  They 
were  all  crazy  with  gold  fever,  he  said.  I  could  see,  too, 
that  they  were  excited;  the  watch  hung  under  the  weather 
rail  jabbering  like  parrots;  an  uglier  crew  of  sea  lawyers 
never  developed. 

"  There  was  one  thing  to  do  and  I  did  it  —  called  them 
aft  and  gave  them  some  hot  scouse.  They'd  shipped  for 
Salem  and  there  they  must  go.  I  didn't  anchor,  but  stood 
off  —  the  harbor  was  crowded  with  deserted  vessels  like 
some  hell  for  ships  —  and  sent  the  jolly  boat  in  with  the 
passengers  and  a  couple  of  men.  They  didn't  come  back, 
you  may -be  sure.  The  consignment  for  San  Francisco  I 
carried  out  that  evening,  for  I  made  sail  at  once." 

"  You  had  a  pretty  time  getting  a  way  on  her,"  Jeremy 
Ammidon  remarked. 

"  I  did,"  Gerrit  acknowledged  shortly.  "  The  second 
mate's  ear  was  taken  loose  by  a  belaying  pin  that  flew  out 
of  the  dark  like  a  gull.  Mr.  Broadrick  had  a  bad  minute 
in  the  port  forecastle  after  he  had  ordered  all  hands  on 
deck  a  third  time.  The  fine  weather  left  us,  though,  and 
that  kept  the  crew  busy;  we  carried  away  the  fore-royal 
mast  and  yard  before  we  were  within  a  thousand  miles  of 
the  latitude  of  the  Horn.  That  hit  us  like  a  cannon  ball 
of  ice.  You  know  what  it  is  at  its  worst,"  he  told  his 
father;  "  weeks  of  snow  and  hail  and  fog  and  gales;  and 
not  for  anything  can  you  keep  an  easting.  God  knows 

[86] 


JAVA*   HEAD 

how  a  ship  lives  through  the  seas;  but  she  does,  she  does, 
and  you  lose  the  Magellan  clouds  astern." 

The  old  man  nodded. 

Gerrit  was  relieved,  however,  when  supper  ended  and 
his  wife  formally  departed  for  her  room.  Immediately 
slipping  a  hand  inside  Rhoda's  arm  he  conducted  her  to 
the  drawing-room.  "  I'd  like  you  to  know  more  about  it," 
he  said  directly. 

"  It  was  very  extraordinary.  A  Lu  Kikwang  was  a 
high  official  of  the  Canton  Customs,  and  when  Shanghai 
was  declared  an  open  port  in  forty-two  they  made  him 
hoppo  there.  I  remembered  him  at  Canton,  a  dignified 
old  duck  with  eighty  or  a  hundred  servants  to  keep  anyone 
from  possibly  speaking  to  him  of  business,  but  there  had 
been  some  trouble  about  foreign  vessels  selling  saltpeter 
illegally  and  —  he  knew  some  English  —  we  had  quite  a 
friendly  little  consultation.  Yet  it  hadn't  prepared  me 
for  his  coming  off  to  the  Nautilus  at  Shanghai  with  a 
linguist  and  an  air  of  the  greatest  mystery.  His  manner 
was  beautiful,  of  course,  absolutely  tranquil  and  that  made 
what  they  said,  what  he  hoped,  seem  even  wilder  than  it 
was. 

"  His  son,  it  appeared,  had  married  and  was  acciden 
tally  drowned  in  the  Great  Canal  hardly  a  month  after 
the  ceremony.  His  widow  belonged,  then,  to  the  husband's 
family,  and  from  that  moment  her  father-in-law  had  had 
nothing  but  bad  luck.  He  had  been  robbed,  his  best 
stallion  died,  there  had  been  a  flood  in  his  tea  which  not 
only  spoiled  the  crop  but  filled  the  ground  with  silt  —  it 
was  impossible  to  relate  his  calamities.  He  consulted  a 

[87] 


JAVA    HEAD 

necromancer  at  last  and  learned  that  it  was  all  caused  by 
the  presence  of  Taou  Yuen. 

"  This,  you  see,  made  the  difficulty,  as  it's  a  frightful 
disgrace  to  return  a  married  daughter  to  her  own  father's 
home,  and  Lu  had  grown  very  fond  of  her.  She  was  ex 
tremely  clever  and  virtuous,  he  said.  The  other  thing 
was  to  kill  her  or  force  her  to  commit  suicide.  He  told 
me  very  calmly  that  he  would  like  to  avoid  this. 

"  Then,  in  the  linguist's  most  flower}7  manner,  they  went 
on  with  what  Lu  Kikwang  proposed.  He  had  recog 
nized  that  I  was  a  man  of  *  superior  propriety '  and  he 
wondered  if  I  would  take  Taou  Yuen  away  to  America 
with  me.  Very  secretly  though  —  there  would  be  an 
uproar  if  it  were  known  that  a  Manchu  woman  had 
been  married  to  a  foreigner.  I  could  see  her  first  in  his 
garden  without  her  knowing  anything  about  it. 

"  It's  needless  to  tell  you  that  I  went  with  them  that 
afternoon.  A  meeting  was  arranged  for  the  next  day  -y" 
he  broke  off,  sitting  forward  with  elbows  on  knees,  gazing 
fixedly  at  his  clasped  hands. 

"  You  make  that  very  clear,  Gerrit,"  his  sister-in-law 
replied;  "  I  now  understand  the  past  almost  as  well  as 
yourself;  but  it's  the  future  I'm  in  doubt  about.  I  saw 
immediately  that  your  wife  was  not  an  ordinary  woman; 
it  would  be  much  easier  if  she  were.  Certainly  you  don't 
intend  to  stay  here,  at  Java  Head ;  but  that  is  immaterial. 
Wherever  you  go  in  America  it  will  not  be  suitable  for  her. 
She'll  be  no  more  at  home  with  your  friends  than  you 
with  hers.  I  feel  terribly  sad  about  it,  Gerrit;  you  were 
as  selfish  as  only  a  man  can  be." 

"  You  are  unjust,  Rhoda,"  he  protested.  "  Taou  Yuen 
[88] 


JAVA    HEAD 

was  willing  to  come.  She  had  read  about  other  countries 
and  saw  a  great  deal  of  the  English  wife  of  a  rich  Dutch 
factor  at  Shanghai;  as  Lu  Kikwang  said,  she's  wonder 
fully  intelligent.  I  think  she  is  happy,  too." 

"  Rubbish!  Of  course  she  loves  you;  I  am  not  talking 
about  that.  How  will  she  get  along  while  you  are  away 
on  your  long  voyages?  She  couldn't  possibly  live  in  the 
cabin  of  a  ship,  and  do  you  suppose  she'd  be  contented 
in  Salem  with  you  absent  for  a  year!  " 

"We  have  as  many  chances  of  success  as  any  other 
marriage,"  he  asserted.  "  The  whole  business  is  foolish 
enough." 

"  That  opinion  might  do  for  a  single  shipmaster,  with 
only  a  month  or  two  out  of  the  year  on  land.  When  you 
were  free,  Gerrit,  your  impatience  with  convention  was 
refreshing  and  possible.  But  can't  you  see  that  you  have 
given  up  your  liberty !  You  have  tied  your  hands.  How 
ever  loudly  you  may  cry  out  against  society  now  you  are 
a  part  of  us,  foolish  or  not.  You'll  find  that  your  wife 
has  anchored  you  in  Salem,  Boston  or  Singapore,  no  mat 
ter  where  you  go:  people  will  reach  and  hurt  you  through 
her. 

"  She  is  very  gorgeous  and  placid,  superior  on  the 
surface;  but  the  heart,  Gerrit  —  that  isn't  made  of  jade 
and  ivory  and  silk." 

"  I'll  bring  down  your  presents  to-morrow,"  he  told 
her,  avoiding  any  further  present  discussion  of  his  mar 
riage.  "Has  father  failed,  do  you  think?  His  tempers 
are  vigorous  as  ever." 

"  He  seems  baggier  about  the  eyes  and  throat.  He  is 
just  as  quick,  but  it  exhausts  him  more.  Things  would  be 

[89] 


JAVA    HEAD 

much  better  if  he  were  only  content  to  let  William  manage 
at  the  countinghouse.  Times  are  shifting  so  quickly  with 
these  new  clipper  ships  and  direct  passages  and  political 
changes." 

"  There's  no  longer  any  doubt  about  the  clippers,"  Ger- 
rit  declared;  "the  California  gold  rush  will  attend  to 
that." 

In  his  room  he  found  Taou  Yuen,  in  soft  white  silk 
worked  with  bamboo  leaves,  on  the  day  bed,  smoking. 
She  rose  immediately  as  he  entered;  and,  coming  close  to 
him,  ran  her  cool  fingers  through  his  hair.  He  stood 
gazing  out  at  the  dim  oil  flares  that  marked  the  confines 
of  Washington  Square,  considering  all  that  Rhoda  had 
said.  Strangely  enough  it  led  his  thoughts  away  from  his 
wife;  they  reverted  to  Nettie  Vollar. 

He  had  been,  he  realized,  very  nearly  in  love  with  her: 
what  he  meant  by  that  inaccurate  term  was  that  if  the  af 
fair  had  continued  a  little  longer  he  would  have  insisted 
on  marrying  her.  Nettie  was  not  indifferent  to  him.  An 
impersonal  feeling  had  attracted  him  to  her  —  a  resent 
ment  of  her  treatment  by  the  larger  part  of  Salem,  par 
ticularly  the  oblique  admiration  of  the  men.  His  super- 
sensitiveness  to  any  form  of  injustice  had  driven  him  into 
the  protest  of  calling  and  accompanying  her,  with  an  exag 
gerated  politeness,  about  the  streets.  It  had  not  been  dif 
ficult;  she  was  warm-blooded,  luxurious,  a  very  vivid 
woman.  Gerrit,  however,  had  made  a  point  of  repressing 
any  response  to  that  aspect  of  their  intercourse  —  the  sheer 
est  necessity  for  the  preservation  of  his  disdain. 

She  had  cried  on  his  shoulder,  in  his  arms,  practically; 
he  had  acted  in  the  purely  fraternal  manner.  But  the 

[90] 


JAVA    HEAD 

thing  was  reaching  a  natural  conclusion  when  her  grand 
father,  Barzil  Dunsack,  had  interfered  with  his  unsup- 
portably  frank  accusations  and  command.  The  Nautilus 
had  been  ready  for  sea,  and  his,  Gerrit's,  imperious  re 
sentment  had  carried  him  out  of  the  Dunsacks'  house  — 
to  Shanghai  and  Taou  Yuen  —  without  another  word  to 
Nettie. 

How  strangely  life  progressed,  without  chart  or  intelli 
gent  observations  or  papers!  He  heard  the  tap  of  his 
wife's  pipe;  there  was  a  faint  sweetish  odor  of  drugged 
tobacco  and  the  scent  of  cloves  in  which  she  saturated 
herself.  Outside  was  Salem,  dim  and  without  perceptible 
movement;  the  clock  in  the  hall  struck  ten.  Taou  Yuen 
didn't  approach  him  again  nor  speak;  her  perceptions  were 
wonderfully  acute. 

The  sense  of  loneliness  that  sometimes  overtook  him 
on  shore  deepened,  a  feeling  of  impotence,  as  if  he  had 
suddenly  waked,  lost  and  helpless,  in  an  unfamiliar  planet. 
There  was  the  soft  whisper  of  his  wife's  passage  across 
the  room.  In  the  lamplight  the  paint  on  her  cheeks  made 
startling  unnatural  patches  of  —  paint.  The  reflections 
slid  over  the  liquid  black  mass  of  her  hair,  died  in  the 
lustrous  creamy  folds  of  her  garment.  She  was  at  once 
grotesque  and  impressive,  like  a  figure  in  a  Chinese  pan 
tomime  watched  from  the  western  auditorium  of  his  inher 
itance.  His  fondness  for  her,  his  admiration,  had  not  les 
sened.  He  surveyed  his  position,  the  presence  here,  in  his 
room  at  Java  Head,  of  Taou  Yuen,  with  amazement;  all 
the  small  culminating  episodes  lost,  the  result  was  beyond 
credence.  His  thoughts  returned  to  Rhoda's  accusation  of 
selfishness,  the  disaster  implied  in  her  pity  for  his  wife. 

[91] 


JAVA    HEAD 

He  tried  again  to  analyze  his  marriage,  discover  whatever 
justification,  security,  it  possessed.  Was  his  admiration 
for  Taou  Yuen  sufficient  provision  for  his  part  of  their 
future  together?  It  was  founded  largely  on  her  superior 
ity  to  the  world  he  had  known;  and  here  it  was  necessary 
for  him  to  convince  himself  that  his  wedding  had  not  been 
merely  the  result  of  romantic  accident.  He  knew  that 
the  sensual  had  had  almost  no  part  in  it,  it  had  been 
mental;  an  act  of  pity  crystallizing  his  revolt  against 
what  he  felt  to  be  the  impotence  of  "  Christian  "  ethics. 
Yet  this  was  not  sufficient;  for  he,  like  Rhoda,  had  found 
under  his  wife's  immobility  the  flux  of  immemorial  woman. 

No,  it  wasn't  enough;  but  more  existed,  he  was  cer 
tain  of  that.  No  one  could  expect  him,  now,  to  experi 
ence  the  thrill  of  idealized  passion  that  was  the  sole  prop 
erty  of  youth.  What  feeling  he  had  had  for  Nettie  —  he 
was  obliged  to  return  to  her  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
only  possible  comparison  —  had  come  from  very  much  the 
same  source  as  the  other.  The  old  impersonal  motives ! 

The  danger,  Rhoda  pointed  out,  had  been  admitted 
when  his  marriage  made  impossible  the  continuation  of 
that  aloof  position.  He  doubted  that  it  could  change  him 
so  utterly.  The  thought  of  the  entertainment  his  wife 
would  afford  him  in  Salem  expanded.  He  regretted  that 
the  best,  the  calling  and  comments  of  the  women,  was 
necessarily  lost  to  him,  but  Taou  Yuen  would  repeat  a 
great  deal:  she,  too,  had  a  sly  sense  of  the  ridiculous.  He 
hoped  that  his  sister-in-law  didn't  suppose  her  helpless; 
the  impenetrable  Manchu  control  gave  her  a  pitiless  advan 
tage  over  any  less  absolute  civilization.  In  the  darkness 

[92] 


JAVA    HEAD 

before  sleep  the  heavy  exotic  scents  in  the  room  oppressed 
him  strangely. 

He  rose  early,  and  quietly  dressing  went  out  into  the 
garden:  buds  on  the  June  roses  against  the  high  blank 
fence  on  the  street  were  swelling  into  visible  crimson; 
there  were  the  stamping  of  horses'  feet  on  the  cobbles  of 
the  stable  inclosure,  the  heavy  breathing  and  admonitions 
of  the  coachman  wielding  a  currycomb.  The  sunlight 
streamed  down  through  pale  green  willow  and  tall  lilac 
bushes,  through  the  octagonal  latticed  summerhouse  and 
across  the  vivid  sod  to  the  drawing-room  door.  Gerrit 
turned,  and  entered  the  farther  yard,  where  his  father  was 
inspecting  the  pear  trees. 

"  The  Nautilus  will  need  new  copper  sheathing,"  Gerrit 
said;  "  she's  pretty  well  stripped  forward." 

"  Take  her  around  to  the  Salem  Marine  Railway  at  the 
foot  of  English  Street.  A  fine  ship,  Gerrit,  with  a  proper 
hull.  I  tell  you  they'll  never  improve  on  the  French 
lines." 

"  She  won't  go  into  the  wind  with  a  clipper,"  he  ad 
mitted;  "  but  I'll  sail  her  on  a  fair  breeze  with  anything 
afloat." 

"If  you  come  to  that,"  his  father  asserted;  "nothing 
handsomer  will  ever  be  seen  than  an  East  Indiaman  in  the 
northeast  trades  with  the  captain  on  the  quarter-deck  in  a 
cocked  hat  and  sword,  the  shoals  of  flying  fish  and  alba- 
core  skittering  about  a  transom  as  high  and  carved  and 
gilded  as  a  church,  the  royal  pennant  at  the  mainmast 
head.  Maybe  it  would  be  the  Earl  of  Balcarras  with  her 
cannons  shining  and  the  midshipmen  running  about." 

[93] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Yes,"  the  younger  man  returned,  "  and  taking  in  her 
light  sails  at  sunset,  dropping  astern  like  an  island.  The 
John  Company's  ruining  British  shipping." 

Jeremy  Ammidon  muttered  one  of  his  favorite  pessi 
mistic  complaints.  "  What  did  you  say  her  name  was?  " 
he  demanded  abruptly. 

"Taou   Yuen." 

"  Taou  Yuen  Ammidon,"  the  elder  pronounced  experi 
mentally.  "  It  doesn't  sound'  right,  the  two  won't  go  to 
gether." 

"  But  they  have,"  Gerrit  declared.  He  thought  impa 
tiently  that  he  must  listen  to  a  repetition  of  Rhoda's  asser 
tions. 

"  I  don't  know  much  about  'em,"  Jeremy  proceeded. 
"  All  I  saw,  when  I  was  younger,  was  the  little  singing- 
girls  playing  mora  and  wailing  over  their  infernal  three- 
stringed  fiddles  something  about  the  moon  and  a  bowl  of 
water  lilies." 

Taou  Yuen  did  not  come  down  to  breakfast,  and  Gerrit 
stayed  away  from  their  room  until  her  toilet  must  be  fin 
ished.  It  was  Sunday;  and  with  the  customary  prepara 
tion  for  church  under  way  William  said: 

"  I  suppose  you  will  go  down  to  the  ship?  " 

The  hidden  question,  the  purpose  of  the  inquiry,  at 
once  stirred  into  being  all  Gerrit's  perversity.  "  No,"  he 
•replied  carelessly;  "  we'll  go  with  you  this  morning." 

"  That's  unheard  of,"  William  exclaimed  heatedly;  "  a 
woman  in  all  her  paint  and  perfume  and  outrageous  clothes 
in  North  Church,  with  —  with  my  family !  I  won't  have 
it,  do  you  understand." 

[94] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  No  worse  than  what  you  see  there  every  week,"  Gerrit 
retorted  calmly;  "  corsets  and  feathers  and  female  gim- 
cracks.  Plenty  of  rouge  and  cologne  too.  It  will  give 
them  something  new  to  stare  at  and  whisper  about." 

William  Ammidon  choked  on  his  anger,  and  his  wife 
laid  a  gloved  hand  on  his  arm.  "  You  must  make  up  your 
mind  to  it,"  she  told  him.  "  It  can't  hurt  anyone.  She  is 
Gerrit's  wife,  you  see." 

Above,  the  shipmaster  said  to  Taou  Yuen:  "We  are 
going  to  church  with  the  family."  He  surveyed  her 
clothes  with  a  faint  glimmer  of  amusement.  She  had, 
he  saw,  made  herself  especially  resplendent  as  a  Manchu. 
The  long  gown  was  straw-colored  satin  with  black  bats  — 
a  symbol  of  happiness  —  whirling  on  thickly  embroid 
ered  silver  clouds,  over  which  she  wore  a  sleeve  coat  fas 
tened  with  white  jade  and  glittering  with  spangles  of 
beaten  copper.  Her  slippers  were  pale  rose,  and  fresh 
apple  blossoms,  which  she  had  had  brought  from  the 
yard,  made  a  headdress  fixed  with  long  silver  and  dull 
red  ivory  pins. 

She  smiled  obediently  at  his  announcement,  and,  with  a 
fan  of  peacock  silks  and  betel  nuts  in  a  pouch  like  a  tea 
rose  hanging  by  a  cord  from  a  jade  button,  she  signified 
her  readiness  to  proceed. 

William  had  gone  on  foot  with  his  girls,  Jeremy  was 
seldom  in  church,  and  Rhoda,  Taou  Yuen  beside  her  with 
Gerrit  facing  them,  followed  in  the  barouche.  It  seemed 
to  the  latter  that  they  were  almost  immediately  at  the  door 
of  North  Church.  The  leisurely  congregation  filling  the 
walk  stiffened  in  incredulous  amazement  as  Gerrit  handed 

[95] 


JAVA    HEAD 

his  wife  to  the  pavement.  Rhoda  went  promptly  forward, 
nodding  in  response  to  countless  stupefied  greetings;  while 
Gerrit  Ammidon  moved  on  at  Taou  Yuen's  side. 

Prepared,  he  restrained  the  latter  from  a  prostration  in 
the  hall  of  the  church.  Nothing  had  changed:  the  um 
brella  trough  still  bore  the  numbers  of  the  pews,  the  stair 
wound  gloomily  up  to  the  organ  loft.  He  again  found 
the  subdued  interior,  the  maroon  upholstery,  the  flat 
Gothic  squares  of  the  ceiling  and  dark  red  stone  walls, 
a  place  of  reposeful  charm.  The  Ammidons  had  two  of 
the  box  pews  against  the  right  wall :  his  brother  and  chil 
dren  were  in  the  second,  and,  inside  the  other  small  in- 
closure,  he  shut  the  gate  and  took  his  place  on  a  con 
tracted  corner  bench.  Taou  Yuen  sat  with  Rhoda  against 
the  back  of  the  pew.  The  former,  blazing  like  a  gor 
geous  flower  on  the  shadowed  surface  of  a  pool,  smiled 
serenely  at  him. 

He  could  hear  the  hum  of  subdued  comment  running 
like  ignited  powder  through  the  church,  familiar  faces 
turned  blankly  toward  him  or  nodded  in  patent  confusion. 
The  men,  he  noted,  expressed  a  single  rigid  condemna 
tion.  The  women,  in  crisp  light  dresses  and  ribboned 
bonnets,  were  franker  in  their  curiosity.  Taou  Yuen  was 
a  loadstone  for  their  glances.  As  the  service  progressed 
her  face  grew  expressionless.  Fretted  sandalwood  brace 
lets  drooped  over  her  folded  hands,  and  miniature  dragon 
flies  quivered  on  the  gold  wires  of  her  earrings ;  the  sharp 
perfumes  of  the  East  drifted  out  and  mingled  with  the 
Western  scents  of  extracts  and  powders  He  only  saw 
that  she  was  politely  chewing  betel  nut.  It  wasn't,  he  told 
himself,  reverting  to  his  critical  attitude  toward  Salem, 

[96] 


JAVA    HEAD 

that  he  was  lacking  in  charity  toward  his  neighbors,  or  that 
he  felt  any  superiority;  but  the  quality  that  signally  roused 
his  antagonism  was  precisely  the  men's  present  aspect  of 
heavy  censure  and  boundless  propriety,  their  stolid  atti 
tude  of  justifying  the  spiritual  consummation  promised  by 
the  sermon  and  hymns. 

The  long  night  watches,  the  anxiety  of  the  sea,  the  pro 
found  mysteries  of  the  wheeling  stars  and  the  silence  of 
the  ocean  at  dawns,  had  given  him,  he  dimly  realized,  an 
inarticulate  reverence  for  the  supreme  mystery  of  creation. 
He  was  unable  to  put  it  into  words  or  facile  prayer  but 
it  was  the  guarded  foundation  of  most  that  he  was,  and  it 
bred  in  him  a  contempt  for  lesser  signs.  The  religion  of 
his  birth,  the  faith  of  Taou  Yuen,  the  fetishism  of  the 
Zanzibar  Coast,  he  had  regarded  as  equally  important,  or 
futile  —  the  mere  wash  of  the  immensity  of  beauty,  the 
inexorable  destiny,  that  had  seemed  to  breathe  on  him 
alone  at  the  stern  of  his  ship. 

He  lost  himself  now  in  the  keenness  of  his  remembered 
emotion:  the  church  faded  into  a  far  horizon,  he  felt  the 
slight  heave  of  the  ship  and  heard  the  creaking  of  the 
wheel  as  the  steersman  shifted  his  hands;  from  aloft  came 
the  faint  slapping  of  the  bunt  lines  on  rigid  canvas,  the 
loose  hemp  slippers  of  the  crew  sounded  across  the  deck, 
the  water  whispered  alongside,  the  ship's  bell  was  struck 
and  repeated  in  a  diminished  note  on  the  topgallant  fore 
castle.  The  morning  rose  from  below  the  edge  of  the  sea 
and  the  pure  air  freshened.  ...  His  thoughts  were  re 
called  to  the  present  by  the  dogmatic  insistence  of  the 
clergyman's  voice,  promising  heaven,  threatening  hell. 
His  gaze  rested  on  the  chalky  debility  of  Madra  Clifford. 

[97] 


JAVA    HEAD 

The  service  over,  the  aisle  past  the  Ammidon  pews  was 
filled  with  a  slow-moving  inquisitive  throng.  Rhoda  chose 
to  wait  until  the  greater  part  was  past,  and  then  she 
followed  with  the  unmoved  Taou  Yuen  and  Gerrit. 
"  This  is  my  brother's  wife,"  he  heard  the  former  say. 
"  Mr3.  Saltonstone,  Gerrit's  sister,  Mrs.  Clifford  and  Miss 
Vermeil.  Yes  ...  from  Shanghai.  Overdue.  We  were 
worried,  of  course."  Taou  Yuen  smiled  vigorously  and 
flapped  the  vivid  fan.  Against  her  brilliant  colors,  the 
carved  jade  and  embroideries,  silver  and  apple  blossoms, 
the  other  women  looked  colorless  in  wide  book  muslin  and 
barege,  with  short  veils  of  tulle  illusion  hanging  from  bon 
nets  of  rice  straw  and  glazed  crepe.  Palpably  shocked  by 
her  Oriental  face  masked  in  paint,  her  Chinese  "  heathen  " 
origin,  yet  they  fingered  the  amazing  needlework  and  won 
dered  over  the  weight  of  her  satins. 

The  men  he  knew  gave  him,  for  the  most  part,  a  curt 
greeting.  They  glanced  more  covertly  at  his  wife;  he  un 
derstood  exactly  what  thoughts  brought  out  this  condemna 
tion  soiled  by  private  speculation ;  and  his  disdain  mounted 
at  their  sleek  backs  and  glossy  tile  hats  supported  on  stiffly 
bent  arms. 

After  dinner  he  walked  through  the  warm  sunny  empti 
ness  of  the  afternoon  to  Derby  Wharf  and  the  Nautilus. 
Standing  on  the  wharf,  smoking  a  cheroot,  he  leaned  back 
upon  his  cane,  studying  the  ship  with  a  gaze  that  missed  no 
detail.  There  was  not  a  sound  from  the  water;  across  the 
harbor  Peach's  Point  seemed  about  to  dissolve  in  a  faint 
green  haze;  a  strong  scent  of  mingled  spices  came  from 
the  warehouses.  There  was  the  splash  of  oars  in  the 
Basin  beyond,  and  the  more  distant  peal  of  a  church  bell. 

[98] 


JAVA    HEAD 

At  the  sound  of  footfalls  behind  him  he  turned  and 
saw  Nettie  Vollar  and  her  uncle,  Edward  Dunsack.  A 
dark  color  rose  in  the  girl's  cheek,  and  her  hand  pulled 
involuntarily  at  Dunsack's  arm,  as  if  she  wished  to  retreat. 
Gerrit  thought  that  she  had  aged  since  he  had  latest  met 
her:  Nettie's  mouth,  with  its  full,  slightly  drooping  lower 
lip,  had  lost  something  of  its  fresh  arch;  her  eyes,  though 
they  still  preserved  their  black  sparkle,  were  plainly  re 
sentful.  Edward  Dunsack,  medium  tall  but  thin  almost 
to  emaciation,  had  a  riven  sallow  face  with  close-cut  silvery 
hair  and  agate-brown  eyes  with  contracted  pupils. 

"  Well,  Nettie,"  Gerrit  said,  moving  forward  promptly, 
"  it's  pleasant  to  see  you  again."  Her  hand  was  cold  and 
still.  "  Dunsack,  too." 

"  I  am  obliged  to  you  for  my  chest,"  the  latter  told  him, 
unmoved  by  Gerrit's  quizzical  gaze. 

"  Glad  to  do  it  for  you,"  the  other  replied;  "it  came 
ashore  with  my  personal  things,  and  so,  perhaps,  saved 
you  something." 

"  Perhaps,"  Dunsack  agreed  levelly. 

Looking  down  at  the  cob  filling  of  the  wharf,  Nettie 
Vollar  said,  "  You  came  home  married,  I  hear,  and  to  a 
Chinese  lady." 

Gerrit  assented.  "  You'll  certainly  know  her,  and  like 
her,  too.  Taou  Yuen  is  very  wise  and  without  the  prej 
udices  — "  he  stopped,  conscious  of  the  stupidity  of  his 
attempted  kindness.  Nettie  looked  up  defiantly,  biting  her 
lip  —  a  familiar  trick,  he  recalled.  Dunsack  interposed: 

"  You  will  find  that  the  Chinese  have  none  of  your  little 
sympathetic  tricks.  No  foreigner  could  ever  grasp  the 
depth  of  their  indifference  to  what  you  might  call  human- 

[99] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ity.  They  are  born  wise,  as  you  say,  but  weary.  I  sup 
pose  your  wife  plays  the  guitar  skillfully  and  sings  the 
Soochow  Love  Song." 

Gerrit  Ammidon  studied  him  with  somber  eyes  and  a 
gathering  temper:  it  was,  however,  impossible  to  decide 
whether  the  implication  was  deliberately  insulting.  He 
wouldn't  have  any  Canton  clerk,  probably  saturated  with 
opium,  insinuate  that  his  affair  was  on  the  plane  of  that 
of  a  drunken  sailor!  "My  wife,"  he  said  deliberately, 
"  is  a  Manchu  lady.  You  may  know  that  they  don't  learn 
dialect  songs  nor  ornament  tea  houses." 

"  Very  remarkable,"  Dunsack  returned  imperturbably. 
"  We  never  see  them.  How  did  you  manage  a  go-between, 
and  did  you  send  the  hour  of  your  birth  to  the  Calculator 
of  Destinies?  Then  there  is  so  much  to  remember  in  a 
Chinese  wedding  —  the  catties  of  tea  and  four  silver  in 
gots,  the  earrings  and  red  and  green  silk  and  Tao  priest 
to  consult  the  gods."  Gerrit  heard  this  with  a  frowning 
countenance.  If  Nettie  were  not  there  he  would  put  Dun- 
sack  forward  with  the  hypothetical  crew  to  which  he  be 
longed.  He  felt  as  sorry  for  Nettie,  he  discovered,  as  ever. 
It  moved  him  to  see  her  vivacity  of  life,  her  appealingly 
warm  color,  slowly  dulled  by  Salem  and  the  adventitious 
circumstance  of  her  birth.  What  a  dreary  existence  she 
led  in  the  harsh  atmosphere  of  her  grandfather  and  the 
solemn  house  on  Hardy  Street!  At  one  time  he  had  fan 
cied  that  he  might  change  it  ...  when  now  here  was 
Taou  Yuen,  detached  and  superior,  waiting  in  his  room 
at  Java  Head. 

"  I  stopped  for  a  moment  to  look  at  the  ship,"  he  said, 
with  the  trace  of  an  ungracious  bow,  "  and  must  get  back." 

[100] 


JAVA    HEAD 

The  sunlight  flung  a  warm  moted  veil  over  Nettie  Vollar. 
She  gave  him  a  startled  uncalculated  glance  of  almost 
desperate  appeal  and  his  heart  responded  with  a  quickened 
thud.  Edward  Dunsack  was  sallow  and  enigmatic,  with 
thin  pinched  lips. 


[lOlJ 


*TT| — ^  HE  stupid  bruiser,"  Edward  Dunsack  de 
clared  in  a  thin  bitterness  that  startled  the 
|  girl  at  his  side.  "  The  low  sea  bully !"  He 
was  gazing  at  the  resolute  back  of  Captain  Ammidon.  A 
surprising  hatred  filled  him  at  the  memory  of  the  other's 
intolerant  gaze,  the  careless  contempt  of  his  words.  He 
thought,  oddly  enough,  of  the  delicate  and  ingenious  tor 
tures  practiced  on  offenders  in  China ;  the  pleasant  mental 
picture  followed  of  Ammidon  bowed  in  a  wooden  collar,  of 
Gerrit  Ammidon  bambooed,  sliced,  slowly  choking.  .  .  . 
With  an  intense  sense  of  horror  he  caught  himself  dwelling 
on  these  dripping  visions.  His  hands  clasped  rigidly,  a 
sweat  stood  out  on  his  brow,  in  a  realization  that  was  at 
once  dread  and  a  self-loathing. 

About  him  lay  the  tranquil  Salem  water,  the  still 
wharves,  the  familiar  roofs  and  green  tree  tops.  This 
wasn't  Canton,  he  told  himself,  but  America:  there  was 
Nettie;  only  a  few  streets  away  was  his  father's  house,  his 
own  home,  all  solid  and  safe  and  reassuring.  China  was 
a  thing  of  the  past,  its  insidious  secret  hold  broken. 
It  was  now  only  a  dream  of  evil  fascination  from  which  he 
had  waked  to  the  reality,  the  saving  substance,  of  Derby 
Wharf.  "  It's  his  domineering  manner,"  he  explained 
the  outburst  to  Nettie;  "all  shipmasters  have  it  —  as  if 
the  world  were  a  vessel  they  damned  from  a  quarter-deck 
in  the  sky.  I  never  could  put  up  with  them." 

[102] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  He  is  very  kind,  really,"  she  replied,  looking  away 
over  the  harbor.  "  It  is  so  queer  —  marrying  a  Chinese 
woman  like  that.  How  will  he  ever  get  along  with  her 
or  be  happy  ?  " 

"  He  won't,"  Edward  Dunsack  asserted.  "  Leave  that 
to  time."  He  studied  her  attentively.  "  Was  it  anything 
to  you?  "  he  asked. 

"  It  might  have  been,"  she  acknowledged  listlessly,  her 
gaze  still  on  the  horizon.  "  He  came  to  see  me  two  or 
three  times,  quite  differently  from  other  nice  men,  and  took 
me  to  a  concert  at  the  Philharmonic  Society.  He  was  get 
ting  to  like  me,  I  could  tell  that,  when  grandfather  inter 
fered  — " 

"  I  see,"  Dunsack  interrupted,  "  with  the  immorality  of 
the  supermoral." 

"  Whatever  it  was  he  was  past  bearing.  No  one  could 
blame  Gerrit  for  getting  into  a  fury.  The  next  day  I 
stood  almost  in  this  spot,  it  was  late  afternoon  too,  and 
watched  the  Nautilus  sail  away.  All  the  canvas  was  set 
and  I  could  see  her  for  a  long  time.  WThen  the  last  trace 
had  gone  it  seemed  to  me  that  my  life  had  sunk  too  .  .  . 
out  there." 

"  The  old  man's  a  fool,"  he  said  bluntly  of  his  father. 
"How  do  you  suppose  he  got  hold  of  a  Manchu?"  he 
shifted  his  thought,  addressing  the  stillness  about  them 
rather  than  his  companion.  "  Don't  imagine  for  a  min 
ute  that  you  are  superior  to  her,"  he  told  Nettie  more  di 
rectly.  "  There  is  nothing  more  remarkable.  They  must 
be  gorgeous,"  a  faint  color  stained  his  long  cheeks. 
"  What  incredible  luck,"  he  murmured. 

He  was  thinking  avidly  of  the  women  of  China  —  the 
[103] 


JAVA    HEAD 

little  gay  girls  like  toys,  the  momentary  glimpses  of  enam 
eled  faces  in  hurrying  red-flowered  sedan  chairs,  faces  of 
ivory  stained  with  carmine,  in  gold-crusted  headdresses. 
A  sudden  impatience  at  Nettie  Vollar's  obvious  person  and 
clothes  expanded  to  a  detestation  of  an  atmosphere  he  had 
but  a  minute  or  so  before  welcomed  as  an  escape  from 
something  infinitely  worse  than  death.  Now  it  seemed 
impossible  to  spend  a  life  in  Salem.  It  would  have  been 
better,  when  he  had  been  released  by  Heard  and  Company, 
to  have  taken  the  position  open  in  the  Dutch  Hong. 

He  was  in  a  continual  state  of  such  vacillation,  as  if  he 
were  the  seat  of  two  separate  and  antagonistic  personali 
ties;  rather,  he  changed  the  figure,  in  him  the  East  strug 
gled  with  the  West.  It  was  necessary  for  the  latter  to  tri 
umph.  The  difficulty  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  first  was 
represented  by  an  actual  circumstance  while  the  other  was 
only  a  dim  apprehension,  a  weakened  allegiance  to  ties 
never  strong. 

He  cursed  the  extraordinary  chance  that,  against  every 
probability,  had  brought  the  chest  of  opium  safely  to  him 
here.  Its  purchase  had  been  the  result  of  habit  evading 
his  will,  he  had  despatched  it  —  in  that  seesawing  contest 
—  by  a  precarious  route,  half  hoping  that  it  would  be  lost 
or  seized;  and,  when  he  had  seen  the  chest  carried  down 
Hardy  Street  to  his  door,  a  species  of  terror  had  fastened 
upon  him,  a  premonition  of  an  evil  spirit  flickering  above 
him  in  a  turning  of  oily  smoke.  Why  hadn't  he  pitched 
the  thing  into  the  water  at  the  foot  of  their  yard !  There 
was  time  still :  he  would  take  the  balls  of  opium  and  dis 
pose  of  them  secretly.  A  sudden  energy,  a  renewed  sense 
of  strength,  flooded  him.  This  distaste  for  Nettie  changed 

[104] 


JAVA    HEAD 

into  a  pity  at  the  ill  luck  that  had  followed  her :  she  didn't 
deserve  it.  Generous  emotions  expanded  his  heart.  He 
dreamed  of  taking  hold  of  his  father's  small  commerce  in 
rum  and  sugar  with  the  West  Indies  and  turning  it  into  a 
concern  as  rich  and  powerful  as  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and 
Saltonstone. 

Why  not! 

They,  too,  would  have  a  big  white  house  on  Washing 
ton  Square  or  Chestnut  Street,  with  servants  —  Chinese 
servants  —  and  horses  and  great  ships  sailing  in,  laden 
with  the  East.  Why  not  indeed !  He,  Edward  Dunsack, 
had  more  brains  than  Jeremy  Ammidon,  that  stiff  old  man 
with  a  face  the  color  of  a  damask  plum.  His  niece  would 
go  to  all  the  balls  at  Franklin  and  Hamilton  Halls,  the 
injustice  of  her  position  overcome  by  an  impressively  in 
creasing  fortune.  Abstractly  he  patted  her  shoulder  with 
a  hand  as  long  and  gaunt  and  yellow  as  his  face.  All 
this  would  come  as  a  result  of  throwing  the  opium  into  the 
harbor.  It  was  as  good  as  accomplished. 

In  the  face  of  his  prospective  well-being  he  felt  already 
the  equal  of  anyone  in  Salem.  If  Gerrit  Ammidon  had 
married  a  Manchu  lady  it  was  his  privilege,  no,  duty,  to 
call  and  put  his  experience  in  things  Chinese  at  their 
command.  She  would  speak  only  a  little  if  any  Eng 
lish;  no  one  here  understood  the  preparation  of  her  food 
—  her  delicate  necessity  for  dishes  not  the  property  of  an 
entire  household;  a  hundred  such  details  of  which  the 
infinitely  cruder  West  must  be  ignorant.  He  thought 
complacently  that  he  would  understand  her  better  than 
anyone  else  in  Salem,  in  Boston,  in  America;  far  better 
than  her  husband.  She  would  without  doubt  learn  to  de- 

[105] 


JAVA    HEAD 

pend  on  him:  they  would  laugh  together  at  the  manners 
and  people  about  them.  Ammidon  would  be  away  for 
long  periods  on  the  China  service  — . 

His  dreams  broke  off  with  a  sardonic  laugh,  a  repetition 
of  the  tone  in  which  he  had  objurgated  the  shipmaster. 
Such  visions  were  the  property  of  youth,  and  he  was  forty- 
two,  forty-two  and  nothing  more  than  a  discredited  clerk 
who  had  fled  across  the  world  from  a  shadow.  But  he 
was  right  —  he  had  seen  white  men  who  had  caught  the 
breath  of  China  accepting  just  such  opportunities  as  the 
one  offered  to  him  after  his  dismissal  by  Augustine  Heard. 
At  the  Dutch  Hong  he'd  be  expected  to  talk  about  his  late 
employer.  Such  situations,  he  had  realized  in  a  rarely 
illuminating  flash,  were  only  temporary,  a  descending 
flight. 

These  men  resembled  the  fate  of,  say,  a  brig  sailing  into 
the  China  Sea  in  all  the  perfection  of  order  of  the  British 
Marine :  at,  perhaps,  Hong  Kong,  sold  to  a  native  firm,  she 
would  be  refitted  under  an  extravagant  flag,  and  slowly  the 
order  would  depart  until,  in  a  slovenly  tangle  of  rigging 
and  defilement,  she'd  be  seen  yawing  on  secret  and  nau 
seous  errands. 

A  homely  chime  of  bells  was  repeated  from  the  town; 
a  ship's  fast  strained  resinously  with  the  changing  tide. 
"  It  will  be  getting  on  toward  supper,"  Nettie  told  him. 
They  walked  slowly  from  the  wharf,  turned  silently  into 
Derby  Street  and  Hardy  on  their  way  home.  Beyond  the 
inner  fence  of  the  garden  the  thick  uneven  sod  reaching  to 
the  water  was  dark  and  cool  against  the  luminous  flush  of 
evening.  A  sound  of  frying  and  heavy  odor  came  from 

[106] 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  kitchen,  and  Kate  Vollar's  voice  informed  them  that 
the  meal  was  ready. 

Barzil  Dunsack  bowed  his  head  over  the  table  and  pro 
nounced  a  grace  in  startlingly  resonant  tones,  the  reverent 
humility  of  his  words  oddly  emphasized  by  a  sort  of  angry 
impatience.  It  seemed  as  if  he  at  once  subjected  himself 
to  his  God  and  expressed  a  certain  dissatisfaction  with  His 
forbearance.  Edward  Dunsack  was  plunged  in  the 
thought  of  the  resolution  he  intended  to  fulfill  that  evening. 

The  throwing  away  of  the  opium  had  lost  a  part  of  its 
symbolic  meaning.  It  now  seemed  even  a  little  rash  when 
he  could  find  an  immediate  highly  profitable  market  — 
the  opium  had  cost  him  seven  hundred  dollars  in  China. 
But  he  must,  he  realized,  be  firm.  Afterwards,  in  his 
room  facing  away  from  the  street  over  darkening  yards 
and  gables  and  foliage,  he  stood  gazing  at  the  chest  of 
mango  wood  that  held  the  drug.  Edward  Dunsack  un 
locked  and  .lifted  the  lid.  On  the  tray  before  him  were 
twenty  balls,  each  the  size  of  his  two  fists,  wrapped  in  a 
hard  skin  of  poppy  leaves,  and  there  was  a  similar  num 
ber  underneath.  It  was  obvious  that  he  couldn't  carry  a 
tray  through  the  house,  and  he  took  out  two  balls,  after 
which  he  secured  the  remainder. 

"  He  walked  quickly  down  the  stair  and  through  the  close 
turning  of  the  lower  hall  that  led  through  a  side  door  to 
the  yard.  A  pale  rectangle  of  lamplight  fell  from  the  sitting 
room  window  over  a  brick  path  and  ground  tramped  bare 
of  grass;  a  clinking  of  dishes  sounded  in  the  kitchen.  The 
sod  was  damp,  and  perhaps  eight  feet  below  the  wooden 
buttress  of  the  land  the  water  showed  impenetrably  black. 

[107] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Safely  there  he  passed  a  tense  hand  over  a  brow  sud 
denly  wet;  he  was  shaking  as  if  in  the  grip  of  a  chill. 
His  condition  needed  drastic  measures.  The  cold  heavy 
opium  gave  out  its  tantalizing  odor.  In  a  minute  it  would 
be  disposed  of  and  he  would  go  for  more.  He  calculated 
that  this  necessitated  twenty  trips  at  the  present  rate  —  a 
bag  might  serve  his  purpose  better.  He  raised  an  arm 
with  an  opium  ball,  but  his  hand  remained  suspended  in 
air.  An  inarticulate  protest  seized  him,  a  suffocating 
sense  of  impending  loss.  He  would  never  be  able  to  get 
Patna  opium  here;  it  was  a  valuable  medical  property. 
His  nerves  shook  at  the  thought  of  its  delights.  Then,  as 
if  without  his  volition  and  against  every  intention,  his  arm 
described  a  short  arc  and  his  hand  was  empty.  There  was 
the  impact  of  a  solid  object  striking  the  water,  a  faint 
ripple  on  the  motionless  expanse,  and  then  absolute  silence. 

He  was  aghast  at  his  wanton  act,  the  irreparable  waste 
of  a  precious  substance,  and  cursed  in  a  low  audible  Can 
tonese.  Whose  concern  was  it  if  he  did,  very  occasionally, 
smoke  a  "  pistol  "?  How  could  it  possibly  matter!  The 
dreams  about  a  great  foreign  commerce,  a  white  house  like 
the  Ammidons',  were  futile;  it  was  too  late.  He  could 
expect  nothing  from  life  but  the  unspeakable  monotony  of 
his  father's  dwelling,  the  bare  office.  He  had  worked 
hard,  been  as  full  of  splendid  early  resolutions  as  anyone, 
and  he  wasn't  blamable  if  chance  balked  his  ambition.  A 
soul  was  nothing  more  than  a  twisting  leaf  in  the  wind  of 
fate.  There  remained  only  to  take  what  escape  was  offered 
^  —  golden  visions,  luxury,  beauty  beyond  all  earth. 

His  contrary  determination  seemed  of  less  actuality  than 
[108] 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  imagined  echoing  of  the  splash  that  still  hung  in  his 
brain.  It  was  a  thing  far  away,  belonging  to  another 
time,  another  man ;  like  the  memory  of  a  period  of  charm 
ing  ignorance.  The  thought  of  it  wove  a  strand  of  mel 
ancholy  into  his  present  mature  realization  like  the  delicate 
scent  of  blossoming  trees  borne  to  him  on  the  evening  air, 
barely  perceptible  and  then  lost  in  the  pungency  of  the 
opium.  The  latter  became,  mystically,  all  China,  the  irre 
sistible  fascination  that  had  gradually  possessed  his  imag 
ination,  dulling  the  associations  of  his  heredity  and  birth, 
calling  him  further  and  further  into  its  secretive  heart. 

He  returned  to  his  room,  where  he  put  back  the  second 
ball  in  the  tray  of  its  chest.  An  extraordinary  weariness 
hung  over  him,  there  was  a  sense  of  leaden  weight  in  his 
arms  and  feet.  Flashes  of  a  different  perception  pierced 
his  apathy;  a  voice,  seemingly  outside  his  being,  whis 
pered  of  danger,  evil  and  danger.  ...  A  twisting  leaf,  he 
told  himself  again  with  his  deep  fatalism. 

The  memory  of  Gerrit  Ammidon's  crisp  blue  gaze,  his 
vigorous  gestures  and  speech,  became  an  intolerable  af 
front,  representing  the  far  lost  point  of  his  own  departure. 
His  contrary  feelings  met  and  grappled  in  his  mind;  but 
in  the  end  the  past,  Salem,  was  always  defeated,  weaker, 
more  faintly  perceived.  In  a  great  many  essentials,  he 
told  himself,  he  had  become  Chinese  in  sympathy  and 
fiber. 

The  lamp  threw  a  smooth  gleam  over  the  mango  wood 
chest,  and  he  bent,  turning  the  key  in  the  ornamental  brass 
lock.  He  could  reconsider  the  disposal  of  the  opium  to 
morrow;  there  was  no  hurry;  he  had  no  intention  of 

[109] 


JAVA    HEAD 

becoming  a  victim  to  the  drug.  That  would  be  an  incon 
ceivable  stupidity,  the  negation  of  all  the  philosophy  he 
had  gained.  Very  occasionally  — 

His  thoughts  swung  to  the  surprising  fact  of  Ammidon's 
Chinese  wife:  if,  as  he  had  first  suspected,  she  were  a 
common  woman  of  the  port  who  had  made  a  fool  of  the 
dull  sailor  he  perceived  the  making  of  a  very  entertaining 
comedy.  There  would  be  the  keenest  irony  in  exposing 
her  to  himself  before  the  complacent  ignorance  of  her  hus 
band.  He  knew  such  women:  convicted  in  Chinese,  per 
haps  before  the  entire  Ammidon  family,  not  a  muscle  of 
her  face  would  betray  surprise  or  concern.  She  might 
try  to  murder  him,  very  ingeniously,  but  never  descend  to 
the  intrigue,  the  lies,  of  a  Western  woman  placed  in  the 
same  position.  She'd  stoically  accept  the  situation. 
These  visions  ran  rapidly,  vividly,  through  his  brain;  he 
was  accustomed  to  them;  a  greater  part  of  his  waking  life 
was  filled  with  such  pictures,  infinitely  more  alluring, 
persuasive,  than  the  disappointing  actuality.  He  got  out 
of  his  clothes,  and,  in  a  loose  gown  of  black  silk,  sat  at 
his  open  window,  his  chin  sunk  in  the  palm  of  a  hand, 
his  face  set  against  the  night. 

The  next  morning,  at  the  breakfast  table,  he  listened 
with  a  fleering  mouth  to  his  father's  long  dogmatic  grace 
before  meat.  His  sister  sat  opposite  their  parent,  her 
gaze  lowered  in  a  perpetual  amazement,  her  entire  person 
stamped  with  a  stupid  humility.  There  was  nothing 
humble,  however,  in  Nettie ;  the  crisp  French  coloring  pos 
itively  crackled  with  an  electric  energy ;  her  mouth  was  set 
in  a  rebellious  red  blot.  Studying  her,  Edward  Dunsack 
saw  that  she  was  prettier  than  he  had  first  realized  on 

[110] 


JAVA    HEAD 

his  return  to  Salem.  He  speculated  over  the  story  she 
had  told  him  yesterday  about  Gerrit  Ammidon's  attach 
ment.  What  an  incredible  idiot  their  father  had  been: 
Edward  would  have  relished  Gerrit  as  a  brother-in-law; 
good  would  have  come  to  them  all  from  such  a  connection. 

If  he  had  been  in  America  at  the  time  no  such  error 
would  have  been  permitted.  With  his  counsel  Nettie 
would  have  caught  Ammidon  beyond  any  escape.  He 
wondered  if  the  girl  had  actually  cared  for  the  shipmas 
ter  or  if  the  affair  had  been  nothing  more  than  a  sop  to 
her  wounded  pride  and  isolation.  In  a  way  beyond  his 
present  understanding  this  seemed  to  be  considerably  im 
portant.  If  she  had  loved  him  no  one  could  predict  what 
her  attitude  might  be  in  any  future  development  of  their 
contact;  but  if  her  pride  only  had  been  involved,  injured, 
she  might  readily  be  an  instrument  for  his  own  obscure 
purposes. 

The  office  where  Barzil  Dunsack  conducted  the  limited 
affairs  of  his  West  India  trading  was  a  small  one-room 
building  back  of  the  dwelling.  There  was  a  high  desk  at 
which  a  clerk  stood,  or  balanced  on  a  long-legged  stool, 
a  more  formal  secretary  against  the  length  of  the  wall,  with 
a  careful  model  of  a  full  ship,  the  spars  and  standing 
rigging  slack  and  the  whole  gray  with  dust,  a  built-in 
cupboard  opposite,  a  dilipidated  chair  or  so  and  a  ten- 
plate  iron  stove  for  wood.  A  window  looked  out  across 
the  grass  to  the  harbor  and  another  opened  blankly  against 
a  board  fence. 

There  Edward  Dunsack  made  a  column  of  entries  in  a 
script  fine  and  regular  but  occasionally  showing  an  un 
controllably  tremulous  line.  He  was  conscious  of  this 

[in] 


JAVA    HEAD 

tendency,  growing  through  the  past  year;  and  he  surveyed 
his  writing  with  a  feeling  of  angry  dismay.  Try  as  he 
might,  with  a  frowning  concentration,  to  pen  the  words 
and  numerals  firmly,  presently  his  attention  would  slip, 
his  hand  waver  ever  so  slightly,  and  a  sudden  stricken 
appearance  of  old  age  fasten  on  the  characters.  ...  By 
heaven,  to-night  he'd  throw  all  that  stinking  stuff  away ! 

Outside  the  day  was  immaculate,  the  expanse  of  the 
water  was  like  celestial  silk,  such  sails,  as  he  saw  resem 
bled  white  clouds.  The  early  morning  bird  song  had  sub 
sided,  but  a  persistent  robin  was  whistling  from  the  grass 
by  the  open  door.  The  curd-like  petals  of  a  magnolia 
were  slowly  shifting  obliquely  to  the  ground,  he  could  hear 
the  stir  of  Derby  Street.  He  was  inexpressibly  weary  of 
the  struggle  always  racking  his  being:  it  seemed  to  him 
that  in  the  midst  of  a  serene  world  he  was  tormented  by 
some  inimicable  and  fatal  power. 

He  fastened  his  thoughts  on  commonplace  happier  ob 
jects,  on  the  page  under  his  hand,  the  entries  of  Medford 
rum  and  sugar  cane  and  molasses,  and  the  infinitely  larger 
affairs  of  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Saltonstone.  There 
was  no  reason  why  he  shouldn't  call  on  Jeremy  Ammidon's 
family.  The  latter  had  signified  by  his  visit  the  desire 
to  end  the  misunderstanding  between  them.  He  was  as 
well  born  as  Gerrit  Ammidon;  only  ill  chance  had  made 
them  seem  differently  situated.  Anyhow,  unlike  Canton, 
mere  exterior  position  had  comparatively  little  weight  in 
Salem.  The  shipmasters,  the  more  important  merchants, 
arrogated  a  certain  superiority  to  themselves:  but  it  broke 
down  before  the  inborn  democracy  of  the  local  spirit. 

That  afternoon,  he  decided,  he'd  be  in  Pleasant  Street; 
[112] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  later  he  dressed  with  the  most  meticulous  care.  A 
growing  doubt  seized  him  as  he  mounted  the  outside  steps 
of  the  Ammi dons'  impressive  house;  but  he  crushed  it 
down  and  firmly  rapped  with  the  polished  knocker  on  the 
opened  door. 

The  family,  a  servant  told  him,  was  in  the  garden;  and 
he  followed  through  a  large  white-paneled  hall  into  a 
formal  drawing-room  and  green  space  beyond.  He  was 
again  uncertain  before  the  number  of  people  grouped  about 
a  summerhouse  and  apparently  watching  his  approach 
with  cold  surprise.  But  Gerrit  Ammidon  stepped  forward 
and  greeted  him  with  an  adequately  level  civility. 

"  You  know  my  father,"  he  said,  and  Jeremy  Ammidon, 
his  heavy  body  in  linen  above  which  his  face  was  dusky, 
put  out  an  abrupt  hand.  There  was  a  Mr.  Brevard,  a 
slender  unconcerned  person  in  very  fashionable  but  re 
strained  clothes ;  William  Ammidon's  wife,  a  large  woman 
in  India  muslin,  handsome  enough,  Edward  Dunsack 
conceded,  in  the  obvious  American  sense;  a  daughter  of 
William's,  a  girl  blooming  into  womanhood,  far  too  vigor 
ous  and  brightly  colored  for  his  taste ;  and  Gerrit's  wife. 

The  latter  had  been  hidden  from  him  at  first,  and  he  saw 
her  suddenly,  completely:  his  surprise  caused  him  to  stand 
in  an  awkward  suspense  —  never  had  he  imagined  that  a 
woman,  even  a  Manchu,  could  be  so  beautiful  1  He  recog 
nized,  in  a  score  of  unmistakable  details,  that  she  was  of 
irreproachably  high  birth;  her  satins  were  embroidered 
with  the  symbols  of  nobility  and  matrimonial  felicity;  the 
gold  fingernail  guards,  the  jade  and  flowering  pearls,  her 
earrings  and  tasseled  tobacco  pouch  and  ivory  fan,  were 
all  in  the  most  superlative  manner. 
[113] 


JAVA    HEAD 

A  deep  pleasurable  excitement  filled  him  as  he  made 
his  greeting  in  correct  Chinese.  The  long  delicate  oval  of 
her  face  showed  no  emotion  at  the  sound  of  her  native 
speech  and  she  returned  his  periods  in  a  slowly  chosen  me 
chanical  English.  Edward  Dunsack  thought  that  as  he 
spoke  an  expression  of  distaste  stamped  Gerrit's  features. 
However,  he  was  left  in  no  doubt :  "  My  wife,"  the  other 
instructed  him,  "  prefers  to  speak  English.  That  is  the 
only  way  she  has  of  picking  it  up." 

A  contempt  filled  Dunsack  which  he  was  barely  able  to 
keep  from  his  voice  and  manner.  He  nodded  shortly,  and 
subsided  into  a  study  of  Taou  Yuen  so  open  that  she  must 
have  become  aware  of  his  interest.  Seated  on  the  bench 
that  circled  the  interior  of  the  latticed  summerhouse  she 
moved  so  that  he  could  no  longer  see  her  face.  Brevard 
was  beside  her,  talking  in  a  low  amused  voice:  there  was 
a  ringing  peal  of  laughter  from  Sidsall  Ammidon  and  a 
faint  infinitely  well-bred  ripple  from  Taou  Yuen.  The 
brilliant  patch  of  her  gown  made  an  extraordinary  effect 
in  the  Salem  garden.  Edward  Dunsack  recognized  the 
scents  that  stirred  from  her,  more  Eastern  and  disturbing 
even  than  opium:  there  was  a  subtle  natural  odor  of 
musk,  the  perfumes  of  henna  and  clove  blossoms  and 
santal. 

A  curious  double  feeling  possessed  him  in  the  split  con 
sciousness  of  which  he  was  capable  —  he  had  the  sensa 
tion  of  having  come,  in  the  suave  afternoon  garden,  on 
overwhelming  disaster,  and  at  the  same  time  he  was  en 
raged  by  the  play  of  Fate  that  had  given  such  a  woman  to 
Gerrit  Ammidon  and  denied  him,  with  his  special  appre 
ciation  of  Oriental  charm,  the  slightest  satisfaction.  A 

[114] 


JAVA    HEAD 

more  general  hatred  of  Gerrit  tightened  to  a  consuming  re 
sentment  of  the  other's  blind  fortune. 

One  thing  was  unmistakably  borne  upon  him  —  in  spite 
of  the  courtesy  he  was  meeting  it  was  clear  that  he  could 
not  hope  to  become  a  customary  visitor  at  the  Ammidons'. 
He  was  put  definitely  outside  the  community  of  interests 
in  which  Brevard  easily  entered.  William  Ammidon 
joined  them,  and  something  like  astonishment  at  Dun- 
sack's  presence  was  visible  on  his  complacent  face. 

He  remained,  however,  in  a  stubborn  resistance  to  small 
adverse  signs  in  the  hope  of  gaining  some  additional  facts 
about  Taou  Yuen.  She  had  been,  he  learned,  a  widow 
and  Gerrit  had  married  her  with  her  father-in-law's 
consent  although  the  latter  was  a  rich  official.  He  wanted 
to  ask  a  thousand  questions,  but  he  knew  that  even  if  the 
Ammidons  were  too  dense  to  grasp  his  curiosity,  Taou 
Yuen  herself  would  comprehend  his  impoliteness.  No 
where  else  could  be  found  the  wisdom  and  poise  of  a  Man- 
chu  lady. 

Jeremy  Ammidon,  in  a  lawn  chair,  a  smoking  cheroot 
in  his  fingers,  asked  him  about  affairs  of  Chinese  gov 
ernment  and  commerce.  As  the  old  man  talked  he  flushed 
darkly  with  quick  indignation.  "  The  English  have  made 
our  political  diplomats  look  like  stuffed  gulls!  "  he  de 
clared.  "  Look  at  their  Orders  in  Council  and  the  British 
Prize  Courts,"  he  proceeded,  waving  his  cheroot;  "  stop 
an  American  vessel  anywhere  and  pretend  to  find  a  desert 
ing  English  sailor.  With  the  Treaty  of  Ghent  and  cod- 
headed  commissioners  and  a  Congress  that  wouldn't  know 
a  ship  from  a  bread  barge  the  country's  going  to  hell  on 
greased  ways!  I've  said  it  a  thousand  times  and  any  man 

[115] 


JAVA    HEAD 

not  a  complete  ass  knows  that  you  can't  run  a  government 
without  a  strong  head.  Locofocos,"  he  muttered. 

Edward  Dunsack  listened  to  this  tirade  with  an  air  of 
polite  attention  which  hid  completely  the  fact  that  he 
heard  or  comprehended  scarcely  a  word.  His  thoughts 
were  filled  by  the  fragrant  vision  of  Taou  Yuen;  already 
he  was  deep  in  the  problem  of  how  to  see  her  again,  to 
morrow.  It  would  be  excessively  difficult.  Eastern 
women  never,  if  they  could  avoid  it,  walked;  and  they 
were,  he  knew,  entirely  without  the  necessity  that  drove 
the  women  of  Salem  into  a  ceaseless  round  of  calling  and 
gossip.  It  was  probable  that,  except  to  ride,  she  wouldn't 
leave  the  house  and  grounds.  He  cursed  the  chance  quar 
rel  that  had  set  a  customary  void  between  the  houses  of 
Dunsack  and  Ammidon,  the  unfortunate  affair  of  his  sister 
and  Vollar  inescapably  adding  to  the  permanency  of  the 
breach;  he  particularly  cursed  Nettie.  There,  however, 
his  mind  took  up  the  twisted  thread  of  the  vague  possibil 
ity  that  the  latter  might  be  useful  to  him:  he  was  amazed 
at  the  way  in  which  his  premonitions  fitted  into  the  pat 
tern  of  situations  yet  to  be  materialized. 

Edward  Dunsack  turned  from  his  contemplation  of 
Taou  Yuen  to  a  careful  consideration  of  Gerrit  Ammidon. 
The  latter  had  a  countenance  which  showed  strong,  easily 
summoned  emotions.  It  was  an  intolerant  face,  Dunsack 
judged,  and  yet  sentimental;  and  it  was  surprisingly  young, 
guileless.  At  the  same  time  it  was  unusually  determined 
—  an  affair  of  uncomplicated  surfaces,  direct  gaze,  marked 
bone. 

He  questioned  sharply,  irritably,  the  length  to  which  his 
[116] 


JAVA    HEAD 

projections  had  reached.  What  were  they  all  about? 
The  answer  was  presented  by  the  glittering  figure  of  the 
Manchu;  she  had  risen  and  was  standing  in  the  entrance 
of  the  summerhouse.  He  thought,  with  a  jerking  pulse,  of 
Oriental  similes;  she  was  a  lotus-woman,  a  green  slip  of 
willow,  an  ambrosial  moon,  a  mustard  flower.  Her  teeth 
were  white  buds,  her  breasts  blanched  almonds. 

His  entire  life  in  China  had  been  a  preparation  for  the 
realization  of  the  present  moment.  The  sense  of  danger, 
of  anger  at  Gerrit  Ammidon,  perished  before  the  supreme 
emotion  called  up  by  Taou  Yuen.  He  wanted  to  embrace 
her  satin-shod  feet,  to  cling  to  her  odorous  hands,  such 
hands  as  were  never  formed  out  of  China,  like  petals  of 
coral.  Not  only  her  bodily  charm  intoxicated  him,  but 
the  thought  of  her  subtle  mind  added  its  attraction,  its 
shadows  never  to  be  pierced  by  the  blunted  Western  in 
stinct,  the  knowledge  of  pleasures  like  perfumes,  the  calm 
blend  of  the  eight  diagrams  of  Confucius,  the  stoicism  of 
the  Buddhistic  soul  revolving  perpetually  in  the  urn  of 
Fate,  and  of  the  aloof  Tao  of  Lao-tze. 

Brevard  left  with  an  easy  familiarity,  already  planning 
a  return,  that  filled  Edward  Dunsack  with  resentful  envy. 
The  sun  had  disappeared  behind  the  house;  long  cool 
shadows  swept  down  the  garden;  it  was  past  time  for  him 
to  go.  A  reluctance  to  move  from  the  magic  of  Taou  Yuen 
possessed  him:  he  was  unable  to  think  how,  when,  he 
would  next  see  her.  He  raged  at  the  prohibition  against 
speaking  Chinese;  that  ability  should  give  him  an  over 
whelming  advantage  of  Gerrit  Ammidon.  This  was,  of 
course,  the  reason  that  he  had  been  virtually  commanded 

[117] 


JAVA    HEAD 

to  limit  himself  to  English.  Many  of  the  forms  of  ex 
treme  Chinese  courtesy  were  impossible  to  express  in  an 
other  language. 

Finally  he  rose;  in  departing  he  emphasized  the  im 
portance  of  Jeremy  Ammidon  —  Taou  Yuen  should  recog 
nize  and  applaud  that.  He  saw  that  she  was  watching 
him  obliquely,  her  lips  in  repose,  her  hands  still  among 
the  satin  draperies.  An  American  would  have  betrayed 
something  of  her  reaction  to  him,  he  could  have  discov 
ered  a  trace,  an  indication,  of  her  thoughts;  but  the  Man- 
chu's  face  was  as  inscrutable  as  porcelain.  William  Am 
midon  nodded,  the  old  man  responded  to  his  leave- 
taking  with  a  degree  of  warmness,  Gerrit  at  least  smiled 
in  a  not  unfriendly  manner.  Edward  Dunsack  bowed 
to  Taou  Yuen,  and  she  gravely  inclined  her  head.  He 
had  a  last  glimpse  of  her  glowing  in  the  green  light  of 
the  inclosure  of  rosebushes  and  poplars,  emerald  sod  and 
tangled  lilac  trees. 

At  the  supper  table  his  sister's  appearance  in  somber 
untidy  black  barege,  Nettie's  unrestrained  gestures  and 
speech,  the  coarse  red  cloth  and  plain  boiled  fare,  all  added 
to  a  discontent  that  he  could  scarcely  restrain.  With  the 
utmost  discrimination  in  delicate  shades  of  beauty  and 
luxury  he  was  yet  condemned  to  spend  his  days  in  sur 
roundings  hardly  raised  above  poverty-stricken  squalor. 
Incongruous  as  it  was  he  could  yet  imagine  Taou  Yuen 
moving  with  a  certain  appropriateness  about  the  Ammi- 
dons'  spacious  grounds  and  house;  but  he  was  absolutely 
unable  to  picture  her  here,  on  Hardy  Street. 

All  the  vivid  scenes  that  continually  formed  and  shifted 
in  his  mind  gathered  about  Gerrit  Ammidon's  wife.  He 

[118] 


JAVA    HEAD 

used  this  phrase  in  a  contemptuously  satirical  manner:  it 
was  impossible  for  Ammidon  actually  to  marry  a  Manchu. 
Such  racial  mating,  he  told  himself,  could  not  be  consum 
mated;  there  were  too  many  deep  antipathies  of  flesh  and 
spirit;  the  man  was  too  —  too  stupidly  normal.  Sooner 
or  later  he  would  swing  back  to  his  own.  With  him, 
Edward  Dunsack,  it  was  different ;  he  always  had  an  inner 
kinship  with  China;  at  first  sight  its  streets  and  sounds, 
odors  and  ways,  had  seemed  familiar,  admirable. 

The  realization  of  this,  when  his  place  with  Heard  and 
Company  collapsed,  had  sent  him  back  to  America,  in  a 
strange  dread.  He  remembered  how  the  vague  fear  had 
followed  him  to  Derby  Wharf.  Now  he  laughed  at  it, 
welcoming  every  Chinese  instinct  he  had.  They  seemed  to 
throw  a  bridge  across  enormous  difficulties,  bringing  him 
finally  to  Taou  Yuen. 

He  lingered  at  the  table  after  supper,  his  head  sunk  on 
his  chest,  revolving  the  various  aspects  of  his  position. 
One  thing  was  definite  —  he  must  have  Taou  Yuen;  it 
was  unthinkable  that  she  should  continue  with  Gerrit  Am 
midon.  It  needed  skillful  planning,  tortuous  execution, 
but  in  the  end  he'd  get  his  desire.  He  had  no  doubt  of 
that.  It  was  necessary.  If  she  opposed  him  she  would 
discover  that  he,  too,  could  be  subtle,  Oriental,  yes  —  dan 
gerous.  None  of  the  stupid  inhibitions  that,  for  example, 
bound  his  father  interfered  with  the  free  exercise  of  his 
personal  wishes.  He  was  beyond  primitive  morality. 

An  ecstasy  of  contemplation  ravished  his  senses. 

"  Goodness,  Uncle  Edward,"  Nettie  exclaimed,  "  you 
scared  me,  you  looked  so  like  a  Chinee." 

"  There  are  no  such  people,"  he  retorted  sharply,  exas- 
[119] 


JAVA    HEAD 

perated  by  the  vulgar  error.  She  was  undismayed;  and 
when,  in  reply  to  the  question,  she  learned  that  he  had  been 
at  the  Ammidons'  her  surprise  increased  his  irritation. 
He  saw  from  her  manner  that  his  calling  there  had  been 
at  least  unexpected.  Nettie  interrupted  the  preparation 
of  the  table  for  breakfast,  and  dropped  into  a  chair  beyond 
him,  her  hands  —  the  sleeves  were  rolled  back  to  her  el 
bows —  clasped  before  her. 

"  You  must  tell  me  everything,"  she  declared  eagerly. 
"  What  is  she  like  ?  Do  they  seem  happy  ?  Did  he  hold 
her  hand  ?  Do  Chinese  women  kiss  ?  Is  she  tall  or  — " 

"  I  can't  remember  a  question  out  of  your  rattle,"  he 
interrupted  her.  He  was  about  to  give  expression  to  his 
admiration  for  Taou  Yuen,  when  he  stopped,  with  tight 
lips.  Here,  perhaps,  was  the  lever  by  which  so  much  was 
to  be  shifted. 

"  She's  Chinese,"  he  said  indifferently,  "  and  that  means 
yellow."  Nettie  made  a  gesture  of  distaste.  "  They 
-seem  to  get  along  well  enough.  Of  course,  it's  ridiculous 
to  call  it  a  marriage,  and  it  seems  to  me  very  questionable 
to  impose  it  on  the  Ammidons  as  that.  The  thing  is  — 
how  long  will  it  last,  how  soon  will  he  get  tired  of  her 
and  send  her  back  to  Canton  ?  " 

Nettie  Vollar  closed  her  eyes,  her  hands  were  rigid. 
The  lamplight,  streaming  up  over  her  face,  showed  him 
that  it  was  tense  and  pale  and  answered  a  question.  Her 
feeling  for  Gerrit  Ammidon  had  been  more  than  a  mere 
hurt  pride.  In  addition  to  that  he  saw  beyond  any  doubt 
the  proof  of  its  existence  still.  This  complicated  his  prob 
lem:  inspired  only  by  a  resentment  that  he  might  fan  into 
hatred  she  would  be  far  more  pliable  than  in  the  grip  of 

[120] 


JAVA    HEAD 

a  genuine  affection  for  Gerrit  Ammidon.  He  understood 
the  processes  of  the  former,  a  flexible  and  useful  steel ;  but 
no  one  could  predict  the  vagaries,  the  absurd  self-sacrifices, 
of  love.  Well,  he'd  have  to  work  with  what  offered. 
That,  he  realized,  was  the  strength  of  his  philosophy  — 
he  accepted  promptly,  without  vain  regret,  the  means  that 
lay  at  his  hand. 

"  Ammidon  seems  worn,"  he  said  generally;  "  they  were 
in  the  garden,  and  I  had  a  few  words  privately  with  him." 
Nettie  glanced  swiftly  across  the  table;  her  lips  moved; 
but  she  repressed  the  obvious  question  trembling  on  them. 
"  He  showed,  I  think,"  he  continued  carefully,  "  a  very 
improper  interest  in  you." 

"How?" 

"  He  asked  if  you  were  well  and  happy.  I  most  cer 
tainly  told  him,  for  any  number  of  reasons,  for  pride  alone, 
that  you  were." 

"  Then  you  told  a  lie,"  she  cried  in  a  tone  so  hard  that 
it  surprised  him. 

"  Of  course,"  he  went  on  smoothly,  "  I  know  that  you 
are  not,  almost  all  your  circumstances  prohibit  that.  But 
I  don't  intend  to  circulate  it  in  Salem.  Opinion  here  may 
have  forced  you  into  a  long  loneliness,  but  I  shan't  give 
anyone  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  it.  And,  after  all,  you 
have  your  grandfather  mostly  to  blame.  You  would  have 
been  married  to  Gerrit  Ammidon  now  if  he  hadn't  inter 
fered  ;  you  would  have  been  walking  about  the  Ammidons' 
garden  with  your  hand  on  his  arm  in  place  of  that  Chinese 
prostitute." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  should  make  me  so  miserable,"  she 
declared.  "  I  don't  care  anything  about  the  garden,  it 

[121] 


JAVA    HEAD 

isn't  that.     Why  do  you  suppose  he  brought  such  a  woman 
home." 

"  Pique,"  he  told  her;  "  he  couldn't  care  for  her  in  the 
way  he  might  for,  well  —  you.  As  I  said,  he'll  drop  her 
on  his  next  voyage  to  the  East;  he  will  leave  her  and 
probably  never  come  back  to  Salem  again.  I  hear  that 
Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Saltonstone  are  planning  a  new 
policy  —  bigger  ships,  clippers  in  the  China  and  Cali 
fornia  trade;  and  that  means  removal  to  Boston.  Their 
facilities  here  are  no  longer  suitable." 

She  moved,  her  chin  fell  upon  her  hands,  propped  up 
with  her  elbows  on  the  table.  Apparently  Edward  Dun- 
sack  was  gazing  at  the  wall  beyond  her.  Her  breast  gave 
a  single  sharp  heave.  When  Nettie  looked  up  her  face 
was  flushed.  "  I  wish  that  I  were  really  a  bad  woman," 
she  spoke  in  a  low  vibrant  voice. 

"  What  is  bad  and  what  is  good?  "  He  still  seemed  to 
ignore  her,  considering  a  question  that  had  no  personal 
bearing.  "  In  one  country  a  thing  is  thought  wrong  and 
in  another  it  is  the  highest  virtue.  In  one  age  this  or 
that  is  condemned,  when,  turn  the  calendar,  and  everyone 
is  praising  it."  He  became  confidential,  the  image  of 
kindness.  "  I'll  tell  you  what  I  think  is  wicked,"  he 
pronounced,  leaning  toward  her,  "  and  that  is  the  way  you 
two  were  kept  apart;  unchristian  is  what  I  call  it." 

"  Gerrit  doesn't  care,"  she  said. 

"  How  do  you  know?  "  he  demanded.  "  I  cannot  agree 
with  you.  I  don't  find  a  great  deal  in  him  to  admire,  he 
is  too  simple  and  transparent;  but  there's  no  doubt  of 
this,  he  is  faithful.  One  idea,  one  affection,  is  all  his  head 
will  hold." 

[122] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  That's  a  beautiful  trait."  A  palpable  wistfulness  set 
tled  over  her. 

"It's  greatly  admired,"  he  agreed;  "although  not  by 
me.  I  believe  in  taking  what  is  yours,  what  you  need, 
from  life.  I  suppose  that  I  have  been  away  from  propri 
eties  so  long  that  they  have  lost  their  importance.  They 
seem  to  me  of  no  greater  weight  than  barriers  of  straw. 
But,  of  course,  that  mightn't  suit  you;  probably,  living  in 
Salem  as  you  have,  its  opinion  is  valuable." 

"  Salem!  "  she  exclaimed  bitterly.  "  What  has  it  ever 
been  to  me  but  an  unfair  judgment?  I  owe  Salem  no  con 
sideration;  I  can't  see  that  I  owe  any  to  life." 

"  I  don't  want  to  insist  on  that,"  he  proceeded  deliber 
ately.  "  The  tragedy  of  your  position  is  that  married  to 
Ammidon  everything  in  the  past  would  have  been  over 
looked,  forgotten.  Even  now  — "  he  stopped  with  a  ges 
ture  indicating  the  presence  still  of  large  possibilities. 

God,  what  a  vacillating  fool  the  girl  was!  He  could 
say  no  more  at  present,  and  he  rose,  leaving  the  room  with 
Nettie  staring  dully  across  the  table.  He  went  outside,  to 
the  grass  fronting  on  the  harbor.  Here,  last  night,  he 
had  thrown  the  opium  into  the  water.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  he  had  lived  through  a  complete  existence  since  then : 
the  presence  of  Taou  Yuen  had  created  a  new  world.  He 
thought  she  walked  to  him  through  the  gloom;  he  saw  her 
slender  body  grow  brighter  as  she  approached;  he  heard 
her  speak  in  a  low  native  murmur;  their  hands  caught  in 
an  eager  tangle. 

He  put  aside,  momentarily,  the  problem  of  the  diffi 
culties  of  going  again  to  the  Ammidons'  for  an  easier  one 
—  the  bringing  of  Gerrit  Ammidon  here.  He  was  conn- 
[123] 


JAVA    HEAD 

dent  that,  thrown  together  on  the  still  rim  of  the  water,  at 
evening,  the  emotion  born  between  his  niece  and  the  ship 
master  and  prematurely  choked  would  revive.  He  had 
no  means  of  knowing  Ammidon's  present  exact  feeling  for 
Nettie;  he  was  counting  only  on  a  general  theory  of  men 
and  nature  at  large.  He  was  already  convinced,  from 
very  wide  knowledge,  experience,  that  the  other  could  not 
form  a  permanent  attachment  to  the  Manchu;  and  Nettie's 
great  difference,  together  with  the  romance  of  her  unhappy 
position,  must  have  a  potent  effect  on  the  fellow's  evident 
sentimentality.  A  dank  air  rose  from  the  water,  like  the 
smell  of  death;  and,  with  an  uncontrollable  shiver,  he 
turned  back  toward  the  house. 

In  his  room  Edward  Dunsack  recalled  that  he  had 
promised  himself  to  throw  away  the  remainder  of  the 
opium  on  this  and  succeeding  nights.  In  view  of  that  his 
movements  were  inexplicable:  he  got  out  from  a  locked 
chest  the  yen  tsiang,  a  heavy  tube  of  dark  wood  inlaid 
with  silver  ideograms  and  diminutive  earthen  cup  at  one 
end.  Then  he  produced  a  small  brass  lamp,  brushes, 
long  needles,  and  a  metal  rod.  Taking  off  his  clothes, 
and  in  the  somber  black  folds  of  the  silk  robe,  he  made 
various  minutely  careful  preparations.  Finally,  extended 
on  his  bed,  he  dipped  the  end  of  the  rod  into  opium  the 
color  of  tar,  kept  it  for  a  bubbling  moment  near  the  blaze 
of  the  lamp,  and  then  crowded  the  drug  into  the  pipe. 
He  held  the  bowl  to  the  flame  and  drew  in  a  long  deep 
inhalation.  A  second  followed  and  the  pipe  was  empty. 
He  repeated  this  until  he  had  smoked  a  mace. 

A  vivacious  and  brilliant  state  of  being  flooded  him; 
he  felt  capable  of  profoundly  witty  conversation,  and 

[124] 


JAVA    HEAD 

laughed  at  the  solemn  absurdities  of  the  Ammidons,  at  his 
father  attempting  to  call  down  a  blessing  out  of  the 
empty  sky  upon  their  food,  at  his  sister's  lugubrious  coun 
tenance,  the  childish  emotions  of  Nettie.  What  a  non 
sensical  strutting  business  life  was. 

The  confines  of  his  room  were  lost  in  an  amber  radiance 
that  filled  all  space;  it  was  at  once  a  light  and  a  perfume 
and  charged  with  a  sense  of  impending  rapture.  A  spark 
ling  crimson  shape  floated  down  from  infinite  skies  — 
Taou  Yuen.  She  wore  a  bridal  costume,  cunningly  em 
broidered  with  the  phoenix,  a  hood  of  thin  gold  plate,  and 
a  band  of  red  silk  about  her  brow  bore  the  eight  copper 
figures  of  the  beings  who  are  immortal.  Her  hair  was 
ornamented  by  the  pure  green  jade  pins  of  summer,  her 
hanging  wrists  were  heavy  with  virgin  silver,  while  her 
face  was  like  the  desirous  August  moon  flushed  in  low 
vapors. 

He  raised  his  bony  arms  —  the  wide  silk  sleeves  fall 
ing  back  —  his  emaciated  yellow  hands.  From  under  his 
dark  eyelids  there  was  a  glitter  of  vision  like  the  sheen 
on  mica  .  .  .  Taou  Yuen  floated  nearer. 

Edward  Dunsack  woke  suddenly,  at  the  darkest  ebb  of 
night,  and  started  hurriedly  to  his  feet.  A  sickening  ver 
tigo,  a  whirling  head,  sent  him  lurching  across  the  room. 
He  came  in  contact  with  a  chest  of  drawers,  and  clung  to 
it  with  the  feeling  that  his  legs  were  shriveling  beneath 
him.  His  consciousness  slowly  returned,  and  with  it  a 
pain  like  ruthless  tearing  fingers  searched  his  body.  The 
rectangle  of  the  open  window,  only  less  dark  than  the  room, 
promised  a  relief  from  the  strangled  effort  of  his  breathing, 
and  he  fell  across  the  ledge,  lifting  his  face  to  a  starless 
[125] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  unstirring  heat.  Waves  of  complete  physical  exhaus 
tion  passed  over  him.  An  utter  horror  fastened  on  his 
brain. 

"  Oh,  God,"  he  said,  with  numb  lips,  "  we  thank  Thee 
for  this,  Thy  daily  blessing — "  He  broke  off  with  an 
effort.  That  was  his  father  pronouncing  a  grace.  "  Oh 
God  — "  he  said  again,  when  it  seemed  to  him  that  in  the 
darkness  he  saw  the  blank  placidity  of  a  Buddha  carved 
from  gray  stone.  Tears  ran  over  his  sunken  cheeks,  salt 
and  warm  like  blood. 


[126] 


VI 

THE  night  was  so  oppressive,  continuing  such 
an  unusually  sultry  period  for  the  season,  that 
Sidsall,  ordinarily  impervious  to  the  effects  of 
weather,  was  unable  to  sleep.  Although  the  door  between 
her  room  and  her  parents'  was  shut,  she  heard  her  father 
—  his  step,  at  once  quick  and  firm,  was  easily  recog 
nizable —  moving  about  beyond.  Her  restlessness  in 
creased  and  she  got  up,  crossing  the  floor  to  the  window 
open  on  the  garden,  where  she  knelt,  the  thick  plait  of 
her  hair  across  her  cheek  and  shoulder,  with  her  arms 
propped  on  the  ledge.  The  depths  of  sky  were  hidden 
in  a  darkness  like  night  made  visible;  and,  in  place  of 
moving  air,  there  were  slow  waves  of  perfume,  now  from 
the  lilacs  and  now  from  the  opening  hedge  of  June  roses. 
Her  brain  was  filled  by  a  multitude  of  minor  images 
and  speculations,  but  fixed  at  their  back  was  the  pres 
ence  of  Roger  Brevard.  She  approved  of  him  absolutely. 
He  had  exactly  the  formal  manner  that  gave  her  a  pleas 
ant  sense  of  delicate  importance,  and  his  clothes  were 
beautiful,  a  sprig  of  rose  geranium  in  a  buttonhole  and 
his  gloves  and  boots  immaculate.  She  liked  rather  slight 
graceful  men,  she  thought,  with  the  quiet  voices  of  a 
polite  ancestry.  Naturally  Olive  Wibird  preferred  less 
restrained  companions,  although  Heaven  knew  that  Olive 
appeared  to  make  all  kinds  welcome.  Olive's  opinion 
[127] 


JAVA    HEAD 

of  Roger  Brevard  would  have  been  very  different  if  he 
had  asked  her  to  dance. 

Sidsall  recalled  the  quadrille  he  had  led  her  through 
at  Lacy's  party;  he  had  been  a  perfect  partner,  at  once 
light  and  firm.  He  had  been  a  habitual  caller  at  Java 
Head  before  that  occasion,  and  had  come  in  the  same  man 
ner  since.  That  is,  casually  viewed,  his  visits  seemed 
the  same;  but  in  reality  there  were  some  small  yet  sig 
nificant  differences.  They  were  all  held  in  his  attitude  of 
the  afternoon  when  he  had  stayed  talking  exclusively  to 
her  on  the  steps. 

She  couldn't  say  just  what  the  change  was;  when  she 
attempted  to  examine  it  her  thoughts  became  confused 
and  turned  to  a  hundred  absurd  considerations,  such  as 
—  at  present  —  the  loveliness  of  the  night.  The  scents  of 
the  flowers  were  overwhelming.  He  got  on,  too,  better 
than  almost  anyone  else  with  her  Uncle  Gerrit's  Manchu 
wife.  She  had  watched  them  together  until  it  had  dawned 
on  her  that  the  two  had  some  important  qualities  in 
common  —  they  both  appeared  to  stand  a  little  aside 
from  the  world,  as  if  they  were  against  the  wall  at  a 
cotillion.  She  thought  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it 
was  precisely  what  Roger  Brevard  never  did;  it  was  true 
in  the  mysterious  way  of  so  much  now  that  came  from 
ideas  over  which  she  had  no  control. 

The  subject  of  Uncle  Gerrit's  wife  —  she  had  not  yet 
been  told  or  decided  for  herself  what  to  call  her  —  was  in 
exhaustibly  enthralling.  But,  before  she  was  again  fairly 
launched  in  it,  she  paused  to  wonder  at  the  presence  of  the 
dreadful  Dunsack  man  on  their  lawn.  His  hollow  yellow 
cheeks  and  staring  brown  eyes  which  somehow  made  her 

[128] 


JAVA    HEAD 

think  of  pain,  his  restless  hands  and  speech,  all  repelled 
her  violently.  Taou  —  Taou  Yuen  hadn't  liked  him 
either:  when,  after  the  longest  time,  he  had  gone,  she 
replied  to  a  short  comment  from  her,  Sidsall's,  father: 

"  Rotten  wood  cannot  be  carved." 

Some  one  else  had  mentioned  opium.  She  had  in 
tended  to  ask  more  particularly  about  this,  but  it  slipped 
from  her  mind.  She  remembered  that  her  grandfather 
made  one  of  his  familiar  exclamations  peppered  with  an 
appalling  word.  He  was  really  very  embarrassing,  and 
she  was  glad  that  Roger  Brevard  had  left.  It  was  a 
bad  example  for  Laurel,  too,  who  copied  him,  and  only 
that  morning  said  "  My  God "  to  Miss  Gomes.  Her 
mind  swung  back  to  the  consideration  of  the  Manchu : 

The  latter  was  the  fact  upon  which  Camilla  was  so 
insistent,  that  in  this  case  a  Manchu  was  a  noble,  almost 
a  princess.  Camilla  suffered  dreadfully  from  the  end 
less  questions  put  to  her  outside  their  house  about  Uncle 
Gerrit's  wife.  She  had  more  than  once  wept  at  the  public 
blot  laid  on  them.  Laurel  was  frankly  inquisitive  and 
Janet  as  puzzling  as  usual. 

The  clothes  of  course  were  enchanting,  the  richness  of 
the  materials  and  hand  embroidery  marvellous;  her  jewelry 
was  never  ending.  It  didn't  seem  quite  like  clothing,  in 
the  sense  of  her  own  tarlatan  and  crinoline,  her  waist 
which  Hodie  wouldn't  properly  lace  and  tulle  draping; 
there  was  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  dressing  in  Van 
Amburgh's  circus;  but  —  in  spite  of  Camilla's  private 
laments  —  every  inch  of  it  was  distinguished.  The  lay 
ers  of  paint  upset  them,  but  Uncle  Gerrit  had  explained,  a 
little  impatiently,  that  it  was  a  Manchu  custom,  adding 
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JAVA    HEAD 

that  the  world  couldn't  be  all  measured  and  judged  by 
Salem. 

Sidsall  liked  her  rather  than  not,  she  decided;  and  de 
termined  to  make  an  effort  to  know  her  better.  She 
wanted  specially  to  discover  the  nature  of  the  bond  that 
held  one  to  the  other,  and  explore,  in  safety,  the  depths 
of  love.  She  could  not  help  feeling  that  her  uncle's 
affair,  extraordinary  as  it  was,  must  throw  light  on  the 
whole  complicated  business  of  marriage.  .  .  .  The  clock 
in  the  hall  struck  an  indeterminate  half  hour,  it  ap 
peared  to  grow  lighter  outside,  and  there  was  a  twittering 
of  martins  from  the  stables.  From  above  came  the  vigor 
ous  harsh  cawing  of  crows.  Suddenly  sleepy  she  returned 
to  bed  and  almost  immediately  the  room  was  flooded  with 
sunlight. 

It  was  an  accepted  fact  now  that  Taou  Yuen,  the 
Garden  of  Peaches,  stayed  in  her  room  until  long  after 
breakfast;  and  when  Sidsall,  rising  from  the  table,  found 
a  servant  taking  up  a  pot  of  hot  water  for  tea,  she  secured 
it  and  knocked  carefully  on  the  door  above.  The  slurring 
hesitating  voice  said  "  Come  in,"  and  she  entered  with  a 
diffidence  covered  by  a  cheerfully  polite  morning  greet 
ing.  She  found  the  other  in  crepe  de  Chine  pantaloons 
wrapped  tightly  about  her  ankles  and  bound  over  quilted 
muslin  socks  with  gay  brocaded  ribbons  and  a  short  float 
ing  gown  of  gray  silk  worked  with  willow  leaves.  Her 
hair  was  an  undisturbed  complication  of  lustrous  black, 
gold  bodkins  and  flowers  massed  on  either  side;  and 
her  face,  without  paint  or  powder,  was  as  smooth  as  ivory 
and  the  color  of  very  pale  coffee  and  cream. 

Sidsall  saw  that  she  was  at  her  toilet,  and  she  put 
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JAVA    HEAD 

down  the  pot  of  steaming  water,  moving  toward  the  door; 
but  Taou  Yuen,  with  a  charmingly  shy  gesture,  begged 
her  to  stay.  She  swiftly  drew  a  cup  of  tea  from  silvery 
leaves,  filled  and  lighted  the  minute  bowl  of  her  tobacco 
pipe,  deeply  inhaled  the  smoke ;  then  returned  to  a  mirror. 

Fascinated,  Sidsall  followed  every  motion. 

Taou  Yuen  polished  her  face  sharply  with  a  hot  damp 
cloth  and  then  dipped  her  fingers  in  a  jar  that  held  a 
sticky  amber  substance.  "  Honey,"  she  said  briefly,  rub 
bing  it  into  her  cheeks  and  palms.  Next  she  attacked 
her  eyebrows,  and  skillfully  wielding  a  thin  silk  cord 
left  arches  like  pencil  markings.  At  times  she  inter 
rupted  her  preparations  to  turn  to  Sidsall  with  a  little  smile 
so  engaging  that  the  girl  smiled  sympathetically  in  an 
swer.  There  were  a  gilt  paper  box  of  rice  powder,  with 
which  she  drenched  her  countenance,  leaves  of  carmine 
transferred  to  her  cheeks  with  a  wet  finger,  and  a  silver 
pot  of  rouge  from  which  she  coated  her  lips.  As  she 
gazed  approvingly  at  her  reflection  Sidsall  said: 

"It's  very  beautiful." 

Her  eyes,  drawn  up  toward  her  temples,  shone  gayly; 
and,  close  to  Sidsall,  she  touched  the  latter  affectionately 
on  the  cheek.  The  cold  sharp  contact  of  the  long  curv 
ing  finger  guard  gave  the  girl  an  unpleasant  shock.  It 
seemed  lifeless,  or  like  the  scratching  of  a  beetle.  Sud 
denly  the  woman's  glittering  gaze,  her  expressionless  face 
stiff  with  paint,  the  blaze  of  her  barbaric  colors,  filled 
Sidsall  with  a  shrinking  that  was  almost  dread. 

She  was  even  more  oppressed  by  an  instinctive  feeling 
of  what  she  could  express  to  herself  only  as  cruelty  hidden 
under  the  other's  scented  embroidery.  At  the  same  time 

[131] 


JAVA    HEAD 

her  curiosity  persisted,  conquered.  She  was  unable,  how 
ever,  to  think  of  any  possible  manner  of  introducing  the 
new  subject  of  her  interest,  love,  and  was  forced  to 
be  content  with  an  indifferent  opening. 

"  We  were  all  quite  surprised  when  Mr.  Dunsack  called 
yesterday,"  she  said.  "  He  isn't  in  the  least  a  friend  of 
the  family.  Grandfather  went  to  sea  with  his  father,  but 
even  they  didn't  speak  for  years  in  Salem.  The  Dunsacks 
are  a  little  common." 

"  I  know,"  Taou  Yuen  replied.  "  Mr.  Dunsack  —  a 
long  time  in  Canton,  at  the  American  agents.  China  is 
bad  for  men  like  him.  Black  spirits  get  in  them  and 
the  ten  sins." 

"  He  stared  at  you  in  the  rudest  way." 

"  He  never  saw  a  Manchu  lady  before.  In  China  the 
dog  would  not  have  passed  by  the  first  gate.  Here  it 
is  nothing  to  be  a  Manchu  or  an  honorable  wife;  it  is 
all  like  the  tea  houses  and  rice  villages.  Men  walk 
up  to  you  with  bold  eyes.  I  tell  Gerrit  and  he  laughs. 
I  stay  in  the  room  and  he  brings  me  shamefully  down. 
This  Mr.  Dunsack  comes  and  the  wise  old  man  talks  to 
him  like  a  son.  He  touches  your  mother's  hand.  He 
sees  the  young  girls  like  white  candles." 

"  We  wouldn't  let  him  really  bother  us,"  Sidsall  ex 
plained;  "probably  if  he  comes  again  we'll  all  be  out." 

Taou  Yuen  made  a  comment  in  Chinese.  "  A  bad 
thought  is  a  secret  knife,"  she  continued;  "it  is  more 
dangerous  than  the  anger  of  the  Emperor,  a  sickness  that 
kills  with  the  stink  of  bodies  already  dead." 

This  seemed  rather  absurd  to  Sidsall.  She  considered 
once  more  the  introduction  of  the  subject  of  her  new 

[132] 


JAVA    HEAD 

concern ;  but,  in  spite  of  Taou  Yuen's  extravagant  appear 
ance,  there  was  a  quality  of  being  which  made  impossible 
any  blunt  interrogation.  She  had  a  decidedly  aloof  man 
ner.  Her  mother,  Sidsall  recognized,  and  the  older  women 
they  knew,  had  a  trace  of  this;  but  in  the  Manchu  it 
was  carried  infinitely  further,  a  most  autocratic  disdain. 
Her  feeling  for  the  other  shifted  rapidly  from  attitude 
to  attitude. 

She  watched,  she  was  certain,  these  same  sensations  come 
over  her  Aunt  Caroline  Saltonstone,  Mrs.  Clifford  and 
Mrs.  Wibird,  who  called  on  Gerrit  Ammidon's  wife  that 
afternoon.  They  were  sitting  with  their  crinoline  wide 
spread  against  their  chairs,  gazing  with  a  concerted  bat 
tery  of  curiosity  at  Taou  Yuen's  shimmering  figure  in  the 
drawing-room  screened  against  the  sun.  Mrs.  Wibird, 
Sidsall  thought  —  a  woman  of  fat  and  faded  prettiness, 
with  wine  red  splotches  beneath  her  eyes,  and  a  voice 
that  went  on  and  on  in  the  relating  of  various  petty 
emotional  disturbances  —  must  have  resembled  Olive  as 
a  girl.  It  was  probable,  then,  that  Olive  would  look 
like  her  mother  when  in  turn  she  was  middle-aged.  Mrs. 
Clifford,  unseasonably  huddled  in  her  perpetual  shawl, 
more  than  ever  suggested  a  haggard  marble  in  somberly 
rich  clothes.  Aunt  Caroline  sat  with  complacent  hands 
and  loud  inattentive  speech.  Taou  Yuen  smiled  at  them 
placidly. 

"  Our  men,"  said  Mrs.  Clifford,  "  went  out  to  China 
for  years.  It  never  occurred  to  them  however  to  marry 
a  Chinese  woman;  but  I  dare  say  they  didn't  see  the 
right  sort." 

"  Most  of  the  captains  like  China,"  Taou  Yuen  said. 
[133] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  They  are  so  far  away  from  their  families  — "  she  made  a 
brief  philosophical  gesture,  and  Madra  Clifford  studied 
her  with  a  narrowed  gaze.  "  It  would  be  the  same,"  she 
continued,  "  if  Chinamen  came  to  America."  Mrs.  Wi- 
bird  shuddered.  "  A  yellow  skin,"  she  cried  impetuously; 
41 1  can't  bide  the  thought." 

"  I'm  sure  we'd  be  tremendously  interested,"  Mrs. 
Saltonstone  hurriedly  put  in,  "  if  you'd  tell  us  about  your 
wedding.  A  Chinese  wedding  must  be  —  be  very  gay, 
with  firecrackers  and — " 

"  My  marriage  with  Captain  Ammidon  was  not  beauti 
ful  —  I  was  a  widow  and  he  foreign.  The  Manchu 
wedding  is  very  nice.  First  there  is  the  engagement  cere 
mony.  I  sit  like  this,"  she  sank  gracefully  to  the  floor, 
cross-legged,  "  on  the  bed  with  my  eyes  shut,  and,  if  I 
am  noble,  two  princesses  come  and  put  the  ju  yi,  it's  jade 
and  means  all  joy,  on  my  lap.  Two  little  silk  bags  hang 
from  the  buttons  of  my  gown  with  gold  coins,  and  two 
gold  rings  on  my  fingers  must  be  marked  with  Ta  hsi, 
that's  great  happiness." 

"  I'm  told  polygamy  is  an  active  practice,"  Mrs.  Wibird 
remarked  with  a  rising  interest. 

"Yes?"  Taou  Yuen  asked. 

"  One  man  —  a  lot  of  wives." 

"  The  Emperor  has  a  great  many  and  some  Manchus 
take  a  second  and  third.  You  think  that  is  wrong  here. 
Who  knows!  The  Chinese  women  are  very  good,  very 
modest.  The  Four  Books  For  Girls  teach  perfect  sub 
mission;  the  five  virtues  are  benevolence,  righteousness, 
propriety,  wisdom,  sincerity.  Confucius  says,  '  The  root 
is  filial  piety.' " 

[134] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Very  admirable,"  Mrs.  Wibird  nodded,  agitating  the 
small  dyed  ostrich  plumes  tipped  with  marabou  of  her 
bonnet;  but  it  was  clear  to  Sidsall  that  this  was  not  the 
revelation  for  which  she  had  hoped.  A  momentary  silence, 
the  edge  of  an  uneasiness,  enveloped  the  visitors. 

"  What  lovely  satins,"  Mrs.  Saltonstone  commented. 

"  Please  —  I  have  a  box  full ;  you  will  let  me  give  you 
some  ?  " 

"  Indeed  yes,  and  thank  you." 

Mrs.  Wibird,  growing  resentful,  said  that  a  cousin  of 
her  aunt's  had  been  a  missionary  to  China,  "  and  did  a 
very  blessed  work  too." 

Taou  Yuen  smoothly  agreed  that  it  was  quite  possible. 
"  Our  poor  have  a  great  many  wrong  and  lustful  ideas," 
she  acknowledged;  "they  tell  lies  and  beat  their  wives 
and  gamble.  The  higher  classes  too,  the  mandarins  and 
princes,  use  the  people  for  their  own  security  and  rob 
them.  Sometimes  the  law  is  not  honest,  and  a  man  with 
gold  gets  free  when  a  laborer  is  put  in  the  bamboo 
cage." 

Mrs.  Clifford  said  very  vigorously,  "  Ha!  " 

The  silence  returned  intensified. 

"  I  remember,"  the  Manchu  went  on,  "  this  will  amuse 
you.  My  father-in-law,  who  was  in  the  Canton  Customs, 
told  me  that  some  boxes  of  Bibles  came  out  from  America, 
with  other  objects,  and  when  they  were  opened  at  the 
Mission  they  were  the  wrong  ones  and  filled  with  rum." 

There  was  not,  however,  any  marked  appreciation  of 

this  on  the  part  of  the  Salem  women.     They  rose  to  leave 

and  Taou  Yuen  sank  on  her  knee.     She  gazed  without 

a  trace  of  emotion  at  the  three  flooding  the  door  with 

[135] 


JAVA    HEAD 

their  belled  skirts.  "  They  are  the  same  everywhere," 
she  told  the  girl.  The  latter  moved  out  into  the  garden. 
There  she  subconsciously  picked  a  rose  and  fastened  it 
in  her  hair;  her  thoughts  turned  to  Roger  Brevard.  In 
his  place  her  Uncle  Gerrit  came  out  through  the  draw 
ing-room  window.  The  usual  shadow  of  the  house,  length 
ening  with  afternoon,  was  pleasantly  enveloping,  and 
they  walked  slowly  over  the  grass. 

"  A  flower  in  your  hair,"  he  said,  "  and  by  yourself. 
You  have  been  thinking  about  true  love."  She  blushed 
vividly  at  this  unexpected  angle  on  her  mind  and  found 
it  impossible  to  meet  his  keen  blue  eyes.  "  Love  must  be 
a  remarkable  thing."  She  raised  a  swift  glance  to  his 
face  and  discovered  that  he  had  not  spoken  to  her  at  all, 
but,  hat  in  hand,  was  looking  away  with  an  expression 
of  abstraction. 

"  I  mean  the  unreasonable  silly  divine  kind,"  he  speci 
fied,  now  gazing  at  her  quizzically,  as  if  lost  in  a  mood 
over  which  he  had  no  control;  "the  sort  that  is  as  long 
as  life  and  stronger.  It  is  entirely  different  and  ages  older 
than  the  reasonable  logical  love,  all  proper  and  suitable 
and  civilized ;  or  the  love  that  is  the  result  of  a  determina 
tion,  the  result  of  a  determination,"  he  repeated,  frowning 
darkly  at  their  feet.  Sidsall  held  her  breath,  thrilled  by 
the  wealth  of  what  she  had  heard,  fearful  of  diverting 
what  might  be  yet  revealed.  But  he  moved  away  abruptly, 
in  a  manner  that  enforced  solitude,  and  stood  apparently 
examining  the  rockery. 

Her  brain  rang  with  the  splendid  phrase,  "  Love  as 
long  as  life  and  stronger."  It  seemed  to  clarify  and 
state  so  much  of  her  lately  confused  being.  Hodie,  art- 

[136] 


JAVA    HEAD 

fully  drawn  into  the  consideration  of  earthly  affection,  was 
far  less  satisfactory  than  Gerrit  Ammidon.  She  dwelt 
on  the  treasure  beyond  moth  or  rust,  lost  in  an  ecstasy 
of  contemplation  expressed  in  her  customary  explosive 
amens.  At  the  same  time  she  admitted  that  lower  unions 
were  blessed  of  God,  and  recommended  Sidsall  to  think 
on  "  a  man  who  has  seen  the  light  and  by  no  means  a 
sea  captain."  Sidsall  replied  cuttingly,  "  I  think  you 
must  forget  where  you  are." 

"I  forget  nothing,"  Hodie  stoutly  maintained;  "I'll 
witness  before  anyone."  She  settled  the  flounces  of 
Sidsall 's  skirt  with  a  deft  hand. 

Walking  toward  the  Saltonstones'  for  tea,  with  a  mul 
berry  silk  parasol  casting  a  shifting  glow  on  her  expanse 
of  clear  madras,  Sidsall  wondered  at  the  sudden  change 
of  almost  all  her  interests  and  preoccupations.  It  was 
very  disturbing  —  she  fell  into  daydreams  that  carried 
her  fancy  away  on  a  search  that  was  a  longing,  a  soft  con 
fusion  of  opening  her  arms  to  mystery.  This  varied  with 
a  restless  melancholy;  the  old  securities  of  her  life  were 
hidden  in  a  mist  of  uncertainty  in  which  her  conscious 
ness  was  troubled  by  nameless  pressures;  something 
within  her  held  almost  desperately  back  from  further 
adventuring.  But  all  the  time  a  latent  fascination  was 
drawing  her  on,  putting  aside  the  curtain  for  her  better 
view. 

The  Saltonstones'  dwelling  on  Chestnut  Street  was  one 
of  a  pair  —  a  large  solid  square  of  brick  —  with  two 
identical  oval  white  porticoes  and  rows  of  windows  keyed 
in  white  stone.  Within  the  staircase  swept  up  to  a  slen 
der  pillared  opening,  through  which  Lacy,  calmly  dress- 

[137] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ing,  waved  a  deliberate  hand.  Mrs.  Saltonstone  was 
seated  by  the  tall  gilt  framed  mirror  on  a  low  marble 
stand  between  long  front  windows.  "  As  usual,"  she  said, 
in  connection  with  her  daughter,  "  Lacy's  as  cool  as  a 
water  monkey;  gets  it  from  James;  they  wouldn't  hurry 
if  — "  She  searched  in  vain  for  an  expression  of  her  fam 
ily's  composure.  "  Now  I  am  an  impetuous  woman." 
She  promptly  exhibited  this  quality  in  the  vigor  with 
which  she  met  the  wrong  canister  of  tea  brought  by  a  serv 
ant.  She  didn't  intend  to  serve  Padre  Souchong  to  a  lot 
of  people  who  apparently  confused  afternoon  tea  with  an 
invitation  to  dinner. 

In  the  small  press  which  followed  Sidsall  stopped  in  the 
dining  room  with  Lacy  and  Olive  Wibird.  Olive  was 
still  discussing  men.  "  He  sat  holding  my  hand  right 
on  that  bench  by  your  hedge,  Sidsall,  and  said  that  noth 
ing  could  keep  him  from  coming  back  for  me,  but  he 
died  of  yellow  fever  in  Batavia."  She  left  in  the  com 
pany  of  a  beau  of  fifty  anyhow,  with  a  glistening  bald 
head,  a  silly  smirking  bow  and  flood  of  compliments. 
Lacy  moved  away  and  Sidsall  found  herself  facing  Roger 
Brevard. 

"  That  looks  remarkably  like  a  garden,"  he  said,  waving 
toward  an  open  door.  The  sun  had  become  obscured  in  a 
veil  of  cloud,  drooping  until  it  almost  seemed  to  rest  on 
the  bright  green  foliage;  her  companion's  mood,  too,  was 
shadowed.  "  I  thought  you'd  be  here,"  he  added  out 
side,  "  and  looked  for  you  at  once." 

"  There  was  something  special  you  wanted  to  say  ?  " 

"  My  dear  child,"  he  replied,  "  can't  you  guess  how 
absolutely  refreshing  you  are?  No,  I  have  nothing  spe- 

[138] 


JAVA    HEAD 

cial.     But  you'll  soon  get  used  to  men  around  with  no 
more  reason  than  yourself." 

She  studied  this  seriously;  and,  as  its  complimentary 
intent  emerged,  a  corresponding  color  stained  her  cheeks. 
Her  gaze  rested  on  him  for  the  fleetest  moment  possible 
and,  to  her  surprise,  she  saw  that  he  was  frowning. 

"  I  came  here  just  to  see  you.  No,"  he  corrected  his 
period,  "  only  to  see  you."  His  manner  was  surprisingly 
abrupt  and  disconcerting.  "  I  can  quite  realize,"  he  went 
on,  "  that  I  shouldn't  say  any  of  this.  Yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world.  I  have 
been  listening  to  the  conventional  babble  of  teas  and  cotil 
lions  for  so  long  that  you  are  like  a  breath  of  lost  youth. 
Certainly  that  is  appropriate.  I  think,"  he  told  her,  "  that 
you  are  the  youngest  thing  alive."  Then  he  laughed,  "  So 
young  that  I  have  annoyed  you." 

"  I  feel  a  great  deal  older  than  I  did,  well  —  last 
month,"  she  said. 

"That  is  a  tragedy."  She  felt  that  if  he  were  still 
amused  at  her  she  was  furious,  but  he  was  even  graver 
than  before.  "  To  tell  you  helps  hurry  the  charm  to 
an  end.  That  is  what  might  be  complained  against  me. 
Yet  flowers  will  open,  you  know,  and  it  might  as  well  be 
in  an  honest  sun." 

"  I  don't  understand,"  she  admitted,  troubled. 

"  Why,  it  means,  Sidsall,  that  I  am  offering  you  an 
experienced  hand,  that  I'm  certain  I  can  do  you  more 
good  than  harm  — " 

"  That's  silly,"  she  interrupted.  "  If  you  mean  that 
we  might  be  friends,  really  confidential  friends,  it  would 
help  me  awfully.  But  then  it's  so  one-sided." 

[139] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"You'll  have  to  overlook  that,"  he  answered;  "prob 
ably  all  that  I  can  give  you,  experience,  isn't  worth  the 
smallest  of  your  feelings.  Probably  you  won't  need  me 
for  an  instant.  Certainly  the  pleasure  will  be  mine." 

"  You  didn't  understand,"  she  told  him,  with  dignity; 
"  it's  the  other  way  round.  I  am  not  a  particle  interest 
ing  and  everyone  agrees  that  I'm  too  healthy.  But  I 
can't  help  it  if  my  cheeks  are  red  and  mother  won't  let 
me  have  powder."  It  was  obviously  impossible  to  ex 
plain  about  Hodie  and  the  lacing. 

"  I  like  it,"  he  insisted.  "  I'll  admit  that  I  am  un 
fashionable  there.  I  think  we'll  hit  on  a  great  deal  to 
share  privately."  There  was  a  faint  patter  among  the 
leaves,  and  a  cold  drop  of  rain  fell  on  Sidsall's  arm. 
Others  struck  Roger  Brevard  but  he  continued  without 
apparently  noticing  them.  "  You  must  understand  that 
I  am  entirely  at  your  service.  Sometimes,  although  they 
won't  come  yet,  there  are  things  a  —  a  friend  can  do 
better  than  one's  family.  You'll  ask  me,  Sidsall?" 

"  Yes,"  she  said  solemnly.  More  rain  struck  her;  she 
could  see  it  now  plainly,  falling  between  them.  Roger 
Brevard's  face  was  dark,  the  frown  still  scarred  his  fore 
head.  Personally  she  was  happier  than  she  remembered 
ever  being  before  and  she  wondered  at  his  severity  of 
bearing.  "  But  you  must  go  in  at  once,"  he  cried,  sud 
denly  energetic,  his  familiar  self;  "  you  are  getting  wetter 
every  minute." 

The  clouds  dissolved  into  a  late  sunlight  that  streamed 
in  long  bars  through  the  canopies  of  elms  on  the  streets. 
From  her  windows  Sidsall  saw  a  world  of  flashing  green 
ery  and  limpid  sky.  Usually  when  she  was  happy  she 

[140] 


JAVA    HEAD 

sang  unimportant  bits  of  light  song,  but  her  present  state 
was  serious  and  inarticulate.  The  indeterminate  ques 
tions,  the  disturbing  vague  moods,  of  the  past  days  some 
how  combined  and  took  on  the  tangible  shape  of  Roger 
Brevard.  Her  curiosity  about  love  was  resolved  into  a 
sudden  inner  shrinking  from  its  possibilities  and  mean 
ing. 

She  was  lost  in  her  aloofness  from  mundane  affairs: 
Taou  Yuen  in  whispering  silk,  her  grandfather's  rotund 
tones,  Laurel  and  Camilla  and  her  mother,  were  distant, 
immaterial.  In  the  evening  she  sat  on  the  front  steps,  a 
web  of  white,  dreamily  intent  on  the  shimmering  sweep 
of  Washington  Square.  After  a  little  she  was  joined  by 
Gerrit  Ammidon.  He  wore  linen  trousers  and  a  short 
blue  sea  jacket;  and  the  wavering  delicately  lavender 
trail  of  smoke  from  his  cheroot  was  like  her  floating 
thoughts. 

"  Already,"  he  said,  "  I  am  full  of  getting  back  on  my 
ship," 

She  smiled  at  him  absently. 

"  The  land  doesn't  do  for  a  sailor,"  he  continued. 
"  They  are  always  into  trouble  on  shore.  I  can't  say  why 
it  should  be  so  but  it  is.  If  there's  not  one  kind  there  is 
another;  rum  and  such  varnish  for  the  able  seaman,  and 
—  and  complications  for  a  master.  I  suppose  that's  be 
cause  there  are  so  confounded  many  unexpected  currents 
and  slants  of  wind,  as  you  might  say.  On  shipboard 
everything  pretty  much  is  charted;  a  thing  will  be  fol 
lowed  more  or  less  by  a  fixed  consequence.  The  waves 
break  so  and  so  on  coral  or  rocks  or  sand;  there  is  usually 
the  sun  for  an  observation;  a  good  man  knows  his  ship, 

[141] 


JAVA    HEAD 

how  many  points  she'll  hold  on  the  wind,  how  a  cargo 
must  be  stowed,  when  to  take  in  the  light  canvas.  You 
can  give  the  man  at  the  wheel  a  course  and  turn  in  or 
stay  on  deck  and  beat  your  way  through  hell.  It's 
exact,  you  know,  but  on  shore — "  he  made  a  hopeless 
gesture. 

"There  are  no  regulations,"  he  observed  moodily;  "or 
else  nobody  follows  them:  collisions  all  the  time,  sinkings 
and  derelicts  drifting  round,  awash  and  dismasted.  But 
they  are  everywhere.  That  fellow,  Edward  Dunsack  — " 
he  stopped,  lost  in  speculation.  Then,  "  He  seems  harm 
less  enough,"  he  resumed,  "even  pitiful;  but  he  sticks 
in  your  head.  I  wish  I'd  never  brought  his  damned  chest 
to  Salem.  A  fool  would  have  known  better.  I'm  worse 
—  a  childish  fool.  A  derelict,"  he  said  again.  "  You 
are  smashing  over  a  swell  at  twelve  knots  or  more,  every 
thing  spread,  when,  in  a  hollow,  there  it  is  squarely  across 
your  bow.  No  time  to  shift  the  wheel,  and  a  ship's  miss 
ing,  perhaps  in  a  hundred  fathom.  It  might  be  the 
best  ship  afloat,  the  best  master  and  stoutest  crew,  but  in 
a  minute  she's  only  a  salty  tangle." 

He  laughed  uneasily  at  the  vividness  of  his  fancy. 
"  If  it's  hard  for  us  what  must  it  be  for  Taou  Yuen?  " 
he  demanded.  "Married  to  me!  Here!  That's  cour 
age  for  you."  He  tramped  down  the  steps,  across  Pleas 
ant  Street,  with  his  bare  head  sunk,  and  vanished  into 
the  obscurity  of  the  Square.  She  caught  a  last  glimmer 
of  white  trousers,  a  faint  rapid  gleam  where  his  lighted 
cheroot  described  the  arc  of  a  passionate  gesture  on  the 
night. 

The  spring,  like  the  full  buds  of  the  hedge  roses  in  the 
[142J 


JAVA    HEAD 

Ammidons'  garden,  passed  swiftly  into  early  summer. 
The  flowers  against  the  house  showed  gay  perennial 
colors,  the  stocks  and  larkspur  and  snapdragons  suc 
ceeded  the  retreating  flood  of  the  lilacs.  The  days  were 
still  yellow  pools  of  heat,  or  else  cooled  by  the  faintly 
salt  sea  wind  drawing  down  the  elms  and  chestnuts,  fol 
lowed  by  purple-green  nights  of  moonlight.  They  seemed 
to  Sidsall  to  hold  everything  in  a  pause.  She  saw  less 
and  less  of  Taou  Yuen  who  now  scarcely  came  out  of  her 
room  except  for  an  occasional  ride  in  the  barouche  with 
Mrs.  Ammidon  or  a  contemplative  hour  in  the  garden, 
usually  at  dusk.  Apparently  content  with  the  elaborate 
rearrangement  of  her  headdress,  she  sat  for  long  periods, 
gazing  out  over  Washington  Square,  idle  except  for  the 
regular  tap  of  her  pipe  emptying  the  ashes  of  the  minute 
bowl. 

Yet  Sidsall's  first  interest  in  her  had  almost  completely 
shifted  to  Gerrit  Ammidon.  He  evidently  preferred  her 
company  to  that  of  the  other  members  of  his  family,  and 
they  often  took  short  largely  silent  walks,  usually  down 
to  the  Salem  Marine  Railway  where  the  Nautilus  was 
undergoing  repairs.  His  protracted  silences  were  broken 
by  the  sudden  vehement  protests  against  the  generally 
muddled  aspect  of  affairs  or  longer  monologues  of  in 
ner  questioning  and  search.  He  almost  never  referred 
to  her  or  made  her  part  of  a  conversation;  she  was  free 
to  dwell  on  her  own  emotions  while  he,  with  a  corrugated 
brow,  went  on  in  his  tortuous  and  solitary  course. 

On  an  afternoon  when  they  had  walked  to  the  foot  of 
Briggs  Street,  and  were  gazing  out  over  the  tranquil  water 
of  Collins  Cove,  Gerrit  Ammidon  asked  abruptly: 

[143] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"Have  you  seen  Nettie  Vollar  lately?" 

Sidsall  was  unable  to  remember  exactly  when  that 
had  been.  She  rather  thought  she  had  caught  a  glimpse 
of  her  in  Lawrence  Place  with  books  under  her  arm  which 
she  was  probably  taking  from  the  Athenaeum  for  her 
grandfather.  Anyone,  she  told  herself  privately,  could 
see  that  Nettie  Vollar  wouldn't  care  for  books. 

Something  had  occurred,  or  threatened  to  occur,  be 
tween  her  uncle  and  Nettie;  what  it  was  she  had  never 
been  told;  but  she  realized  that  only  one  thing  could 
really  happen  between  a  man  and  girl  —  they  must  have 
been  in  love.  In  the  interest  of  this  she  recalled  Nettie 
Vollar's  appearance,  but  was  unable  to  discover  any 
marked  attractions.  The  elder  had  a  good  figure,  rather 
full  for  her  age,  and  totally  different  from  her  own  square 
solidity.  Her  hair  was  coarse  and  carelessly  arranged, 
her  clothes  noticeable  for  a  love  of  brightness  rather  than 
care  in  the  spending  of  a  small  sum. 

Gerrit  Ammidon  had  the  strangest  tastes! 

He  was  standing  immobile,  looking  across  the  Cove 
as  if  he  were  on  a  quarter-deck  searching  for  a  hidden 
land.  His  legs  were  slightly  spread,  firmly  planted  in 
a  manner  to  defeat  any  sudden  lurching.  She  grew  a  lit 
tle  impatient  at  him  staring  like  a  block  at  nothing  at  all ; 
she  felt  older  than  he,  superior  in  the  knowledge  of  life; 
he  seemed  hardly  more  than  an  absurd  boy.  Sidsall  had 
a  desire  to  shake  him.  He  was  so  —  so  impracticable. 
"Don't  you  think  we'd  better  be  going?"  she  asked 
finally.  Gerrit  Ammidon  turned  and  followed  her 
obediently. 

There  were  lights  in  the  rope  walk  on  Briggs  Street; 
[144] 


JAVA    HEAD 

• 

through  a  window  she  could  see  a  man  pacing  down  the 
long  narrow  interior  laying  a  strand  of  hemp  from  the 
burden  on  his  shoulders.  It  made  her  shudder  to  think 
of  the  monotonous  passage  forward  and  back,  an  eternity 
of  slow-twisting  rope.  Yet  life  was  something  like  that 
—  she  took  the  happenings  of  each  day  and  wove  them 
into  a  strand  dark  and  bright:  a  strand,  she  realized, 
that  grew  stronger  as  it  lengthened.  .  .  .  That  would  be 
true  of  everyone  —  of  her  companion  and  grandfather  and 
Hodie. 

They  reached  the  house  as  the  family  were  gathering 
in  the  dining  room,  when  Sidsall  found  Roger  Brevard 
unexpectedly  staying  for  supper.  She  met  his  direct 
greeting  and  smile  with  a  warm  stir  of  pleasure  and  sat 
in  a  happy  silence  listening  to  the  voices  about  the  table. 
Her  uncle  had  brought  his  wife  down  and  the  candles 
glittering  among  the  lusters  on  the  walls  spread  their 
light  over  the  Manchu's  strange  vivid  figure.  Everything 
about  life  was  so  confusing,  Sidsall  thought.  The  night 
flowed  in  at  the  open  windows  drenched  with  magic:  here 
were  candles  but  outside  were  stars.  The  port  in  its 
engraved  glass  decanter  seemed  to  burn  with  a  ruby  flame. 
"Bah!"  her  grandfather  was  exclaiming.  "I'll  put  a 
thousand  dollars  on  Gerrit  and  the  Nautilus  against  any 
clipper  built;  but  mind,  in  all  weathers." 

"  Voyage  by  voyage,"  William  Ammidon  insisted,  "  he 
would  be  left  in  the  harbor.  The  California  gold  depos 
its  — ." 

Later  a  crowd,  slowly  collecting,  recalled  the  fact  that 
the  Salem  Band  was  to  play  that  night  in  the  Square. 
"  Oh,  mother,  look,"  Laurel  cried;  "they've  got  lamps  in 
[145] 


JAVA    HEAD 

their  hats."  Small  wavering  flames  were  being  lighted 
on  the  musicians'  hats;  there  were  melancholy  discon 
nected  hoots  from  bassoons  and  the  silver  clear  scale 
of  a  bugle.  "  Can't  I  get  nearer,  mother?  "  Laurel  im 
plored  as  usual.  "  Can't  I  go  and  see  the  little  lamps  on 
their  heads?  " 

"  Sidsall  and  I  will  look  after  her,"  Roger  Brevard 
put  in,  and  almost  immediately  the  three  were  entering 
Washington  Square.  The  throng  was  thickest  directly 
behind  the  band,  radiating  in  thinning  numbers  to  the 
wooden  boundary  fence.  Laurel  led  them  to  an  advan 
tageous  position,  where  they  could  watch  the  curious  effects 
of  the  ring  of  lights  above  intent  faces  drawn  hollow- 
cheeked  by  the  vigorous  blowing  of  instruments.  The 
leader,  in  the  center  of  the  flickering  smoky  illumination, 
now  beat  with  his  arms  in  one  direction,  now  in  another. 

A  second  selection  followed,  and  a  third,  during  which, 
in  surprising  pauses,  the  band  shouted  a  concerted 
"Hurrah!"  Sidsall  was  infinitely  contented.  How 
splendidly  erect  and  calm  and  distinguished  Roger  Bre 
vard  was!  She  hated  younger  men,  they  were  only  boys, 
who  kept  up  a  senseless  talk  about  college  humor.  He 
saw  instantly  that  the  people  were  crushing  her  skirts, 
and  firmly  conducted  them  out  of  the  crowd.  It  was 
nicer  here  beyond  the  wavering  dark  mass :  a  waltz  flowed 
about  her  so  tender  and  gracious  that  her  eyes  filled  with 
tears. 

But  Laurel  had  to  be  taken  home;  and,  clasping  Mr. 
Brevard's  hand,  the  little  girl  talked  volubly  as  they 
moved  away.  "  And  so,"  she  said,  "  I  told  her  to  keep 
her  topsails  full." 

[146] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"What?"  he  demanded. 

"  She  was  falling  off,  you  know  —  losing  way.  Hell's 
hatches  — " 

"  Laurel,"  Sidsall  corrected  her  sharply.  "  No,  you 
mustn't  laugh  at  her." 

Only  Gerrit  Ammidon  was  on  the  steps,  the  other  men 
were  in  the  library;  her  mother  had  gone  up  with  Janet. 
Laurel  left  them,  and,  without  speech,  they  walked 
through  the  house  to  the  lawn.  The  stars  had  appar 
ently  retreated  to  new  infinities  of  distance  and  night, 
there  was  a  throb  of  music  so  faint  that  it  might  be  only 
an  echoing  memory;  Roger  Brevard's  face  was  pale  and 
strained.  He  asked: 

"  Have  you  forgotten  that  we  are  friends?  " 

"  No,"  she  returned  seriously,  lifting  her  look  to  his. 
He  was  very  close  to  her  and  her  heart  beat  unsteadily. 
She  had  a  choking  premonition  of  what  was  about  to 
occur,  but  she  stood  without  the  slightest  attempt  to  pre 
vent  his  kiss.  It  affected  him  even  more  than  herself, 
for  he  stepped  back  sharply  with  his  hands  clenched. 
Roger  was  silent  for  so  long  that  she  said,  timidly: 

"  I  didn't  mind,  so  much." 

"Thank  you,"  he  replied  almost  harshly.  "There's 
no  need  for  you  to  regret  it.  No  need,  no  need.  But  if 
it  were  only  a  year  more  — ." 

"  We  all  grow  older,"  she  told  him  wisely. 

"  So  we  do,  Sidsall,  and  we  change.  But  you  should 
stay  exactly  as  you  are  now,  white  and  young  and  fra 
grant.  Never  the  fruit  but  always  the  blossom,  and  al 
ways  a  night  in  early  summer.  The  afterwards  is  an 
indifferent  performance." 

[147] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  don't  understand,"  her  voice  was  shadowed. 

"  Sidsall  for  a  moment.  Don't  move  —  opening  petals, 
shy  pure  heart  .  .  .  loveliness.  .  .  ." 

"  I  don't  understand,"  she  repeated,  but  the  trouble  had 
vanished.  She  even  smiled  at  him:  she  was  filled  with 
an  absolute  security  in  her  vision  of  Roger  Brevard. 
Why,  she  had  no  need  to  question;  it  was  an  instinct  be 
yond  search  and  above  knowledge;  perhaps,  she  thought 
as  they  turned  toward  the  house,  its  name  was  love. 


[148] 


VII 

THE  days,  to  Nettie  Vollar,  seemed  to  be  both 
unutterably  dull  and  colored  by  a  possibility 
of  excitement  like  an  undercurrent  of  hardly 
perceptible  fever.  Her  mother,  it  was  true,  took  on  her 
self  most  of  the  duties  of  Barzil  Dunsack's  house;  but  there 
were  still  a  large  number  of  little  things  that  returned  un 
varied  with  every  morning,  noon  and  night  for  the  girl's 
attention.  The  cause  of  any  impending  excitement  — 
except  the  mere  presence  of  Gerrit  Ammidon  in  Salem, 
now  surely  of  no  moment  to  her  —  she  was  unable  to 
place.  The  feeling  that  pervaded  her  most  was  the 
heavy  conviction  that  her  life  was  a  complete  waste,  she 
had  the  sensation  of  being  condemned  to  stay  in  sur 
roundings,  in  a  service,  that  never  for  a  moment  repre 
sented  her  desire  or  true  capabilities.  Her  family,  as 
she  had  grown  into  maturity,  seemed  strange,  her  place 
there  an  unhappy  accident. 

At  her  brightest  periods  she  pictured  being  suddenly, 
arbitrarily,  removed  into  happier  appropriate  regions. 
For  a  time  that  vision  had  assumed  the  tangible  shape  of 
Gerrit  Ammidon;  then  this  comfortable  figure  had  ab 
ruptly  left  her  to  an  infinitely  more  seldom  return  of 
her  faint  indefinite  hope. 

Through  the  inordinate  number  of  hours  when  she  was 
potentially  alone  she  had  developed  a  strain  of  almost 

[149] 


JAVA    HEAD 

painful  thought  out  of  keeping  with  the  whole  of  her 
naturally  unreflective  being.  In  moments  such  as  the 
present  —  she  was  sitting  in  her  room  overlooking  Hardy 
Street  on  its  landward  reach  —  she  followed  the  slow 
turnings  of  her  mind  in  the  manner  of  a  child  spelling  out 
a  sentence.  Two  things  seemed  to  her  of  the  first  im 
portance —  the  existence  into  which  she  had  been  forced 
by  the  circumstance  of  her  birth,  and  her  unknown  father 
himself:  unknown,  that  is,  except  for  vague  promptings 
and  desires  which,  for  need  of  a  better  reason,  she  traced 
to  his  personality.  That  he  was  superior,  in  that  he  had 
had  a  distinct  measure  of  gentle  blood,  she  was  assured 
by  her  mother  on  one  of  the  rare  occasions  when  the  sub 
ject  was  touched  between  them.  To  that  she  credited  the 
greater  part  of  her  obscure  dissatisfaction  with  conditions 
which  she  described  as  mean. 

The  latter  evidently  didn't  disturb  her  mother  or  grand 
father;  she  realized  that  the  long-drawn  silent  severity 
of  the  old  man  had  crushed  what  spirit  her  mother  may 
have  had.  It  was  clear  that  the  elder  woman  had  been 
very  pretty,  with  wide  fluttering  eyes  which  made  you  think 
of  gray  moths,  and  delicately  colored  cheeks;  but  all 
that  had  been  crushed,  too.  She  was  meek  in  a  way  that 
filled  her  daughter  with  determined  resentment  and  fear. 
The  resentment  sprang  from  the  silent  assertion  that  she 
wouldn't  be  worn  down  like  that;  the  fear  followed  the 
realization  of  the  rigid  power  of  the  old  man  and  the 
weight  of  all  that  held  her  powerless  to  escape.  Naturally 
she  was  rather  cheerful  than  somber,  an  involuntary  gay- 
ety  rose  from  her  in  the  drabbest  moments ;  she  even  defied 
Barzil  Dunsack  with  ribbons  and  flowers  on  her  bonnet. 

[ISO] 


JAVA    HEAD 

The  prospect  from  her  window  offered  no  relief  from 
the  interior;  it  was  true  that  in  the  other  direction  she 
could  catch  glimpses  of  the  harbor,  by  leaning  out  she 
could  get  the  comparatively  full  sweep  at  the  bottom 
of  the  street;  but  there  were  usually  things  ugly  and 
restraining  between  her  and  the  freedom  of  the  horizon. 
Her  favorite  place  had  been  at  the  edge  of  the  grass  above 
the  tide;  but,  since  his  return,  Edward  Dunsack  had  hit 
upon  it  too,  and  his  proximity  made  her  increasingly  un 
easy.  For  one  thing  he  talked  to  himself  out  loud,  prin 
cipally  in  Chinese,  and  the  sliding  unintelligible  tongue, 
accompanied  by  the  sight  of  his  gaunt  yellow  face,  his  in 
attentive  fixed  eyes,  gave  her  an  icy  shiver.  It  was  al 
most  worse  when  he  conversed  with  her  in  a  palpable 
effort  at  an  effect  of  sympathy. 

She  rose  and  wandered  finally  to  the  embankment  of 
the  garden.  The  water  shimmered  under  the  full  flood 
of  afternoon;  she  was  gazing  at  the  distance  in  an  aim 
less  manner  that  had  lately  fastened  on  her  when  she 
heard  a  stirring  of  the  grass  behind  her  and  Edward 
Dunsack  approached.  He  was  livid  in  the  pitiless  light, 
and  seemed  terribly  fragile,  a  thing  that  a  mere  clap  of 
thunder  might  crumble  to  nothing;  she  felt  that  she 
could  sweep  him  away  with  a  broom;  yet  at  the  same  time 
there  were  startling  gleams  of  inner  violence,  a  bitter 
energy,  an  effect  of  deepness,  that  appalled  her. 

"If  you  should  ask  me,"  he  declared,  "if  my  opinion 
is  of  any  value,  I'd  say  that  Ammidon  owed  you  consid 
erable.  He  led  you  to  expect  something  better  than  his 
running  away  without  a  word;  I'd  have  an  explanation 
out  of  him.  Of  course,  if  he  had  come  back  married  — 

[151] 


JAVA    HEAD 

this  affair  with  a  Chinese  woman  isn't  that  —  it  would  be 
all  over.  But,  somehow,  with  things  as  they  are,  I  can't 
believe  that  it  is." 

"  Do  you  expect  me  to  go  to  their  house,  like  you 
did?  "  she  replied  resentfully. 

He  turned  such  a  malicious  face  on  her  that  instinctively 
she  moved  back.  For  a  moment  he  was  silent,  his  meager 
leaden  lips  drawn  tight  over  dark  teeth  in  a  dry  grin, 
his  fingers  like  curved  wires;  then,  relaxing,  he  cursed 
the  entire  house  of  Ammidon.  "  The  truth  is,"  he  ended, 
"  that  you  were  a  little  fool;  you  had  everything,  every 
thing,  in  your  hand  and  threw  it  away."  His  gaze  strayed 
from  her  to  the  surface  of  the  water,  a  short  distance 
from  the  land.  "  Threw  it  away,"  he  repeated;  "  it  can't 
be  got  in  this  country  either." 

He  was,  she  thought,  crazy.  However,  all  that  he 
said  about  Gerrit  lingered  in  her  mind;  it  fanned  to  new 
life  the  embers  of  her  rebellion.  If  a  chance  should 
come  she  would  let  Gerrit  Ammidon  know  something  of 
the  wrong  he  had  done  her.  As  her  uncle  had  pointed 
out,  the  Chinese  woman  was  different  from  an  American, 
a  white  woman.  Their  entire  position,  Gerrit's  and  her 
own,  was  peculiar,  outside  ordinary  judgments. 

She  saw  him  occasionally  from  a  distance,  as  she  must 
continue  to  do  while  he  was  in  Salem,  since  no  opportunity 
had  been  made  for  them  to  exchange  words.  That  must 
come  from  Gerrit. 

Her  mother  called  her,  and  she  went  in,  finding  the 
elder  in  the  kitchen.  "  I  can't  get  enough  heat  to  bake," 
she  worried ;  "  you  can  bear  your  hand  right  in  the  oven. 
Your  grandfather  won't  have  his  sponge  biscuit  for  sup- 

[152] 


JAVA    HEAD 

per."  Nettie  declared,  "  I  certainly  wouldn't  let  it  bother 
me.  Just  tell  him  and  let  him  say  what  he  likes."  Her 
mother  turned  palpably  startled.  "  But  — "  she  began 
weakly. 

"  I  know  exactly  what  you're  going  to  say,"  Nettie  cut 
in,  "  he  has  it  every  night  and  he'll  expect  it.  How 
much,  I'd  like  to  ask,  have  you  been  expecting  all  your 
life  and  getting  nothing?  And  now  I  am  the  same.  I 
don't  believe  we're  as  wicked  as  grandfather  lets  on,  and 
I'm  certain  he's  not  so  good  as  he  thinks.  I  don't  admit 
we  are  going  to  hell,  either;  if  I  did  I  can  tell  you  I'd 
be  different.  I'd  have  a  good  time  like  some  other  girls 
I  see.  I  guess  it  would  be  good,  anyhow,  with  silk 
flounces  four  yards  around.  I'm  what  I  am  because  I 
don't  listen  to  him;  I  don't  pay  any  attention  to  the  pious 
old  women  who  make  long  faces  at  us." 

"  You  mustn't  talk  like  that,  Nettie,"  her  mother  pro 
tested  anxiously.  "  It  has  a  right  hard  sound.  Your 
grandfather  is  a  very  upright  religious  man.  It's  proper 
for  those  who  sin  to  suffer  in  this  world  that  they  may 
be  humble  for  the  next." 

"  I  don't  want  to  be  humble,"  Nettie  told  her.  "  The 
Ammidons  aren't  humble.  Mrs.  Saltonstone  isn't."  A 
pain  deepened  visibly  on  the  elder's  pale  countenance. 
"  You  mustn't  think  it  doesn't  hurt  me,  Nettie,  to  —  to 
see  you  away  from  all  the  pleasure.  It  tears  at  my  heart 
dreadful.  That  is  part  of  the  punishment."  The  girl 
made  a  vivid  gesture,  "  But  you  sit  back  and  take  it!  " 
she  cried.  "  You  talk  of  it  as  punishment.  I  won't!  I 
won't!  I'm  going  to  do  something  different." 

"  What?  "  her  mother  demanded,  terrified. 
[153] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  don't  know,"  Nettie  admitted.  "  But  if  I  had  it 
to  do  over  I'd  kiss  Gerrit  Ammidon  as  soon  as  he  looked 
for  it." 

"  Nettie,  do  you  —  do  you  think  he  wanted  to  marry 
you?" 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  shortly.  "  He's  like  that  What 
ever  you  might  say  against  him  he's  honest." 

Her  mother  began  to  cry,  large  slow  tears  that  rolled 
out  of  her  eyes  without  a  sound.  She  sat  with  lax  hope 
less  hands  in  her  lap  of  cheap  worn  dress  stuff.  Nettie 
Vollar  felt  no  impulse  toward  crying;  she  was  bright 
with  anger  —  anger  at  what  Barzil  Dunsack  had  done 
with  her  mother,  at  the  harm  he  had  worked  in  her. 
"  You  are  a  saint  compared  to  Uncle  Edward,"  she  as 
serted.  "  I  don't  know  what's  wrong  with  him,  but  there 
is  something." 

"  I've  noticed  it  too:  times  his  eyes  are  glazed  like,  and 
then  his  staring  at  you  like  a  cat.  It's  a  fact  he  doesn't 
eat  right,  and  he  forgets  what's  said  as  soon  as  a  body 
speaks.  Might  he  have  some  Chinese  disease,  do  you 
think?" 

"  It's  not  like  a  real  sickness.  .  .  ." 

The  evening  in  the  dreary  sitting  room  with  only  the 
reddish  illumination  of  one  lamp  was  almost  unendurable. 
Her  grandfather  sat  with  broad  wasted  hands  gripping 
his  shrunken  knees,  his  eyes  gazing  stonily  out  above  a 
nose  netted  with  fine  blue  veins  and  harsh  mouth  almost 
concealed  by  the  curtain  of  beard.  Edward  rose  uneasily 
and  returned,  casting  a  swelling  and  diminishing  shadow 
—  obscurely  unnatural  like  himself  —  over  the  faded 
and  weatherstained  wall  paper.  Her  mother  was  bowed, 

[154] 


JAVA    HEAD 

speechless.  Nettie  wanted  to  scream,  to  horrify  them  all 
with  some  outrageous  remark.  She  would  have  liked  to 
knock  the  lamp  from  the  table,  send  it  crashing  over  the 
floor,  and  see  the  flames  spread  out,  consume  the  house, 
consume  .  .  .  she  stopped,  horrified  at  her  thoughts. 

She  didn't  want  things  like  that  in  her  mind,  she 
continued,  but  the  echo  of  dancing,  of  music,  of  the 
Salem  Band  marching  up  Essex  Street  with  Mr.  Morse 
playing  his  celebrated  silvery  fanfare  on  the  bugle.  She 
wanted  to  laugh,  to  talk,  yes  —  to  love.  Why,  she  was 
young,  barely  twenty-one ;  and  here  she  was  in  a  house  like 
the  old  cemetery  on  Charter  Street.  Before  they  went  to 
bed  her  grandfather  would  read  out  from  the  Bible,  but 
always  the  Old  Testament.  Finally  he  rose  and  secured 
the  volume,  bound  in  dusty  calf,  its  pages  brown  along 
the  edges.  His  voice  rang  in  a  slow  emphasized  fervor: 

"  '  Hast  thou  not  procured  this  unto  thyself,  in  that  thou 
hast  forsaken  the  Lord,  thy  God,  when  he  led  thee  by 
the  way? 

"  '  And  now  what  hast  thou  to  do  in  the  way  of  Egypt, 
to  drink  the  waters  of  Sihor?  or  what  hast  thou  to  do  in 
the  way  of  Assyria,  to  drink  the  waters  of  the  river? 

"  '  Thine  own  wickedness  shall  correct  thee,  and  thy 
backslidings  shall  reprove  thee;  know  therefore  and  see 
that  it  is  an  evil  thing  and  bitter,  that  thou  hast  forsaken 
the  Lord  thy  God,  and  that  my  fear  is  not  in  thee,  saith 
the  Lord  God  of  hosts. 

"  *  For  of  old  I  have  broken  thy  yoke,  and  burst  thy 
bonds;  and  thou  saidst,  I  will  not  transgress;  when  upon 
every  high  hill  and  under  every  green  tree  thou  wanderest, 
playing  the  harlot. 

[155] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  '  Yet  I  had  planted  thee  a  noble  vine,  wholly  a  right 
seed:  how  then  art  thou  turned  into  the  degenerate  plant 
of  a  strange  vine  unto  me  ? 

"  *  For  though  thou  wash  thee  with  nitre  — '  " 

Nettie  was  impressed,  intimidated,  in  spite  of  the  con 
trary  resolution  in  the  kitchen:  the  words  seemed  to  burn 
into  her  mother,  herself,  like  boiling  fat  from  a  pan;  and 
a  great  relief  flooded  her  when  she  could  escape  again 
to  the  temporary  relief  of  her  room.  It  was  hot,  the 
windows  were  up,  and  she  made  no  light  that  might  at 
tract  mosquitoes  or  force  her  to  draw  the  close  shades. 
She  stood  undressed  luxuriating  in  the  sense  of  freedom  of 
body.  She  was  richly  white  in  the  gloom :  her  full  young 
beauty  gave  her  a  feeling  of  contentment  and  strength, 
and,  equally,  a  great  loneliness.  It  wasn't  corrupt,  a 
"  degenerate  plant,"  she  thought  with  a  passionate  con 
viction  like  a  cry. 

She  determined  to  say  no  prayer  to  such  a  ruthless  Be 
ing;  yet,  soon  after,  in  her  coarse  nightgown,  she  found 
herself  kneeling  by  the  bed  with  hard-clasped  hands.  It 
was  a  prayer  for  which  Barzil  Dunsack  would  have  had 
nothing  but  condemnation:  she  implored  the  dark,  the 
mystery  of  Augustness,  for  carnal  and  light  things,  yes 
—  for  waltzes  and  quadrilles  and  songs  and  pleasure, 
young  pleasure,  all  the  aching  desires  of  her  health  and 
spirit  and  nature  and  years;  but  most  for  love.  She  said 
the  last  blindly,  in  an  instinct  without  definition,  with 
the  feeling  that  it  was  the  key,  the  door,  to  everything 
else;  and  in  her  mind  rose  the  image  of  Gerrit  Ammidon. 
She  saw  his  firm  direct  countenance,  the  frosty  blue  eyes 
and  human  warmth.  He  needn't  have  come  at  all,  she 

[156J 


JAVA    HEAD 

added,  if  it  had  been  only  to  double  the  dreariness  of 
her  existence. 

She  wondered  a  little,  her  emotion  subsiding,  at  the  in 
terest  her  uncle  showed  in  her  affairs.  It  wasn't  like 
what  else  she  had  gathered  of  him;  and  she  searched,  but 
without  success,  for  any  hidden  reason  he  might  have. 
He  actively  blackened  the  name  of  Ammidon  while  he 
was  lost  in  too  great  an  indifference  to  be  moved  by  any 
but  extraordinary  pressures.  Everything  left  his  mind,  as 
her  mother  had  said,  almost  immediately.  Suddenly 
weary,  she  gave  up  all  effort  at  understanding. 

A  wind  moved  in  from  the  sea,  fluttering  the  light  cur 
tains,  and  brought  her  a  sense  of  coolness  and  release. 
It  came  from  the  immense  free  sweep  of  ocean  to  which 
her  sinking  consciousness  turned  in  peaceful  recognition 
and  surrender. 

Altogether,  in  the  days  that  followed,  she  realized  a 
greater  degree  of  mental  freedom  than  before  her  revolt. 
She  had  removed  herself,  it  appeared,  a  little  outside  the 
family,  almost  as  if  she  were  studying  them  calmly 
through  a  window:  a  large  part  of  the  terror  her  grand 
father  had  possessed  for  her  had  disappeared,  leaving  for 
her  recognition  a  very  old  and  worn  man;  she  was  sorry 
for  her  mother  with  a  deep  affection  mixed  with  impa 
tience.  At  first  she  had  tried  to  put  something  of  her 
own  revived  spirit  in  the  older  woman  but  it  was  like 
pouring  water  into  a  cracked  glass:  her  mother  was  too 
utterly  broken  to  hold  any  resolution  whatever. 

Nettie's  feeling  for  Edward  Dunsack  became  an  in 
stinctive  deep  distrust.  It  was  almost  impossible  for  her 
to  remain  when  —  as  he  so  often  did  now  —  he  approached 
[157] 


JAVA    HEAD 

her  to  talk  about  the  injustice  of  her  mode  of  life  and 
the  debt  Gerrit  Ammidon  owed  her.  He  would  stand 
with  his  fingers  twitching,  talking  in  a  rapid  sharp  voice, 
blinking  continuously  against  any  light  brighter  than  that 
of  a  shaded  room  or  dusk.  He  seldom  left  the  office  or 
went  out  through  the  day;  his  place  at  the  dinner  table 
was  far  more  often  empty  than  not.  But  after  their  early 
supper,  in  the  long  late  June  twilights,  he  had  an  in 
exhaustible  desire  for  her  to  stroll  with  him.  She  oc 
casionally  agreed  for  the  reason  that  they  invariably 
passed  in  the  vicinity  of  Washington  Square  and  Pleas 
ant  Street,  and  saw  the  impressive  block  of  the  Ammidon 
mansion.  However,  they  never  met  any  of  its  inmates. 
Once  they  had  walked  directly  by  the  entrance ;  some  girls, 
perhaps  a  woman,  certainly  two  men,  were  grouped  in 
the  doorway:  it  was  growing  dark  and  Nettie  couldn't 
be  certain. 

Edward  Dunsack  clearly  hesitated  before  the  bricks 
leading  in  between  the  high  white  fence  posts  topped  with 
carved  twisting  flames;  and,  in  a  sudden  agony  at  the 
possibility  of  his  stopping,  Nettie  hurried  on,  her  cheeks 
flaming  and  her  heart,  she  thought,  thumping  in  her 
throat. 

Her  uncle  followed  her.  There  was  a  trail  of  intimate 
merriment  from  the  portico,  a  man's  voice  mingling  gayly 
with  those  of  the  girls.  "  That  was  the  Brevard  who's 
in  the  Mongolian  Marine  Insurance  Company,"  Edward 
Dunsack  informed  her.  "  I  hear  he's  a  great  hand  for 
leading  cotillions  and  balls  —  the  balls  you  ought  to  take 
part  in."  On  and  on  he  went  with  the  familiar  recital 
of  her  wrongs.  It  carried  them  all  the  way  over  Pleasant 

[158] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  Essex  and  Derby  Streets  home.  The  next  day,  how 
ever,  he  was  forced  to  go  about  the  town,  and  returned 
for  dinner  in  a  state  of  excitement  evident  to  anyone. 

He  ate  without  attention  whatever  was  before  him,  and 
extravagantly  pleasant,  related  how  he  had  conversed  with 
Mrs.  Gerrit  Ammidon  in  the  family  carriage  in  front  of 
the  countinghouse  of  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Salton- 
stone  on  Liberty  Street.  Nettie  was  surprised  that  his 
concern  was  caused  by  such  a  commonplace  event.  "  The 
women  of  China — ."  Words  failing  him,  he  waved  a 
thin  dry  hand.  His  father  frowned  heavily.  Then, 
abruptly,  as  if  he  had  been  snatched  out  of  his  chair 
by  an  invisible  powerful  clutch,  he  started  up  and  dis 
appeared. 

The  afternoon  passed  the  full  and  Nettie,  bound  in 
preparation  for  supper  for  Redmond's,  the  Virginia  Oys- 
terman's  at  Derby  Wharf,  stood  waiting  for  some  money. 
"  I  can't  think  where  I  left  my  reticule,"  her  mother 
called,  "  unless  it's  in  Edward's  room  where  I  cleaned 
this  morning.  Just  run  up  and  see.  .  .  .  He'll  be  at  the 
office." 

Above,  Nettie  found  the  door  closed,  but  it  opened 
readily  as  she  turned  the  knob :  she  went  in  without  hesi 
tation.  The  interior  she  naturally  thought  was  empty; 
and  then,  with  an  unreasoning  cold  fear,  she  saw  that 
Edward  Dunsack  was  lying  on  the  bed.  Some  of  his 
clothes  were  tumbled  on  the  floor,  and  he  wore  his  black 
Chinese  gown.  The  room  was  permeated  with  a  heavy 
smooth  odor;  on  a  stand  at  her  uncle's  hand  was  a  curious 
collection  of  strange  objects  —  a  little  brass  lamp  with  a 
flickering  bluish  flame,  a  black  and  silver  object  like  a 
[159] 


JAVA    HEAD 

swollen  unnatural  pipe,  stained  bodkins,  a  lump  of  what 
she  took  to  be  tar  — 

Her  attention  was  caught  by  Edward  Dunsack's  face: 
it  had  fallen  back  with  his  pinched  chin  pointing  toward 
the  ceiling,  it  was  the  color  of  yellow  clay,  and  through 
his  half -opened  eyelids  was  an  empty  glimmer  of  gray- 
white.  She  shrank  away  involuntarily,  and  the  word 
"  Dead  "  formed  just  audibly  on  her  trembling  lips.  In 
an  instant  she  was  in  the  hall,  calling  in  a  panic-stricken 
voice,  her  icy  hands  at  her  throat;  and  her  grandfather 
mounted  the  stair  with  surprising  agility,  followed  by  his 
daughter  Kate. 

"  Uncle  Edward,"  Nettie  articulated,  waving  toward 
the  room  from  which  she  had  fled.  The  two  women  fol 
lowed  the  rigid  advance  of  Barzil  Dunsack.  As  he  saw 
the  figure  of  his  son  there  was  a  stabbing  gasp  of  his 
breath.  He  halted  for  a  moment,  and  it  seemed  to  Net 
tie  Vollar  that  suddenly  his  determined  carriage  crumbled, 
his  shoulders  sagged;  then  he  went  forward.  The  bed 
had  high  slender  posts  that  at  one  time  supported  a 
canopy,  but  now  they  were  bare,  and  an  old  hand  held  to 
one  as  he  bent  over. 

"Is  he  dead  ?  "  the  older  woman  asked. 

Barzil  Dunsack  made  no  immediate  reply;  his  gaze 
turned  from  his  son  to  the  stand,  the  fluttering  lamp  and 
its  accessories.  His  head  moved  slowly  in  the  act  of 
sniffing  the  pungent  haze  swimming  in  the  interior.  Net 
tie  could  see  his  face,  and  she  was  appalled  by  an  ex 
pression  grimmer  than  any  she  remembered;  it  was 
both  harsh,  implacable,  and  stricken,  as  empty  of  blood 
as  the  countenance  on  the  bed.  The  hand  on  the  post 

[160] 


JAVA    HEAD 

tightened  until  it,  too,  was  linen  white.  She  drew  close 
to  her  mother's  side,  putting  a  supporting  arm  about  the 
soft  shaking  shoulders. 

"  No,"  said  Barzil  Dunsack,  in  a  booming  voice,  "  not 
dead,  and  yet  dead  forever.  Go  downstairs,"  he  com 
manded.  They  backed  confused  to  the  door.  "If  Ed 
ward  is  sick  — "  Kate  Vollar  began.  The  old  man's  face 
blazed  with  intolerable  pain  and  anger.  "  Woman,"  he 
demanded,  "  can  you  cure  what  God  has  smitten?  "  His 
eyes  alone,  hard  and  bright  in  the  seamed  and  hairy  face, 
drove  them  out  into  the  hall.  Below  in  the  sitting  room 
Nettie  exclaimed,  "  He  might  have  told  us  something !  " 

"  Whatever  it  is,"  her  mother  returned,  "  it's  dreadful 
bad.  I've  felt  that  all  along  about  Edward;  he's  never 
been  himself  this  last  time."  Mechanically  she  found  her 
reticule  beside  the  painted  ostrich  egg  from  Africa. 
"  You'll  have  to  get  the  oysters  anyhow,"  she  told  her 
daughter,  maintaining  the  inevitable  pressure  of  small  ne 
cessities  that  defied  all  tragedy  and  death. 

Nettie  escaped  with  an  enormous  relief  into  the  sunny 
normal  tranquility  of  the  afternoon.  The  house  had  be 
come  too  horrible  to  bear;  and  even  on  the  thronged  length 
of  Derby  Wharf,  like  a  street  robbed  of  its  supports  and 
thrust  out  into  the  harbor,  she  was  followed  by  the  vision 
of  Edward  Dunsack 's  peaked  clayey  face. 

She  got  the  oysters,  and  in  an  overwhelming  reluctance 
to  return  walked  out  to  the  end  of  the  wharf,  where  a 
ship  was  discharging  her  cargo  —  heavy  plaited  mats  of 
cassia  with  a  delicate  scent,  red  and  blue  slabs  of  marble, 
baskets  of  granular  cakes  of  gray  camphor,  rough  brown 
logs  of  teak,  smooth  dull  yellow  rolls  of  gamboge,  bags 
[161] 


JAVA    HEAD 

with  sharp  conflicting  odors,  baled  silks  and  half  chests 
of  tea  wrapped  in  bamboos  and  matting  painted  with  the 
ship's  name,  Rose  and  Rosalie. 

There  Nettie  found  herself  beside  a  little  girl  clasping 
the  hand  of  a  bulky  old  gentleman  in  pongee  and  a  palm 
leaf  hat  and  following  every  operation  with  a  grave  critical 
regard.  "  I  guess,"  she  said  to  her  companion,  "  it's  only 
the  cheap  sort  of  tea,  a  late  picking,  or  it  would  be  in 
canisters."  She  was,  Nettie  realized,  the  youngest  Am- 
midon  child  with  her  grandfather.  The  latter  looked 
round  and  recognized  Nettie  Vollar.  "  How's  Barzil 
Dunsack  ?  "  he  asked  immediately. 

She  was  at  a  loss  for  an  answer,  since  she  could  not  de 
scribe  the  subject  of  the  inquiry  as  all  right  nor  explain 
their  unhappy  condition.  "  Intend  to  stop  in,"  Jeremy 
Ammidon  continued;  "last  time  I  was  there  I  went  up 
like  a  rocket."  Laurel  —  that  was  the  child's  name,  she 
remembered  —  gazed  at  her  intently.  "  I  was  saying  to 
grandfather,"  she  repeated  precisely,  "  that  this  wasn't 
really  much  of  a  cargo.  Nothing  like  the  one  Uncle  Ger- 
rit  brought  back  in  the  Nautilus.  We  were  having  an 
argument  about  Salem  too.  But,  of  course,  all  the  big 
cargoes  are  going  into  Boston,"  she  sturdily  confronted  the 
flushed  old  man. 

"  You're  William  all  over  again,"  he  asserted,  almost 
annoyed.  Both  their  expressions  grew  stubborn  in  a  man 
ner  that,  in  view  of  their  great  difference  in  age  and  expe 
rience,  Nettie  thought  quite  absurd.  What  a  beautiful 
dress  the  child  had  on  —  Porto  Rico  drawn  work,  with 
pale  yellow  ribbons  to  her  bonnet.  "  I  wish  you'd  stay 
here  a  minute  with  Nettie  Vollar,"  Jeremy  told  her,  "  while 

[162] 


JAVA    HEAD 

I   see  the   wharfinger."     He   went  unhurried  along  the 
wharf,  and  Laurel  Ammidon  drew  closer  to  her. 

"  She's  not  much  of  a  ship  either,"  Laurel  said,  indicat 
ing  the  Rose  and  Rosalie.  "  She's  built  like  —  like 
grandfather.  They're  different  now.  I  went  to  New 
York  to  see  the  Sea  Witch  launched,  and  she's  the  tallest 
vessel  afloat,  with  three  standing  skysail  yards  and  ringtail 
and  water  sails.  She's  black  and  has  a  gilded  dragon 
for  a  figurehead;  and,  although  she  went  out  in  a  gale, 
got  to  Rio  in  twenty-five  days.  I  talked  to  Captain 
Waterman,  too;  he  commanded  the  Natchez,  you  know." 

How  the  child  ran  on !  "  You've  studied  a  lot  on 
ships,"  Nettie  commented.  "  I  know  the  main  truck  from 
a  jewel  block,"  Laurel  replied  complacently.  "  But 
Camilla's  a  frightful  lubber.  I  should  think  she'd  make 
Uncle  Gerrit  sick.  She  does  me."  Nettie  Vollar  was 
seized  by  the  temptation  to  question  Laurel  about  Gerrit 
Ammidon,  about  his  wife  —  anything  that  touched  or  con 
cerned  him.  A  wave  of  emotion  swept  over  her,  a  loneli 
ness  and  a  desire  the  cause  of  which  she  would  not  face. 
She  wanted  to  take  Laurel's  hand  in  hers,  and  with  the 
old  ponderous  comfortable  gentleman  go  up  to  the  serenity 
of  their  gardens  and  wide  happy  house.  She  wanted  Ger 
rit  Ammidon  to  smile  at  her  with  his  eyes  blue  like  a  fair 
sea.  .  .  .  His  father  was  returning. 

\J  Laurel  again  grasped  the  large  hand  and  they  turned 
to  leave.  Jeremy  Ammidon  nodded  to  Nettie.  Nothing 
remained  for  her  but  the  place  on  Hardy  Street;  then  she 
saw  that  the  others  had  stopped  and  were  signaling  for 
her.  "  Captain  Dunsack  .  .  .  old  friend,"  the  elder  said 
abruptly.  "  Stubborn  as  the  devil.  No  worse  than  me, 
[163] 


JAVA    HEAD 

though,  no  worse  than  me.  Confounded  proud,  too.  You 
let  me  know  if  there  is  anything,  that  is,  if  you  need  — " 
he  paused,  breathing  stormily,  glaring  at  her  in  an  as 
sumed  angry  impatience. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  answered,  "  but  there's  nothing." 

What  most  shocked  her  on  the  return  home  was  the 
manner  in  which  their  life  callously  continued  when  she 
felt  it  should  have  been  shattered  by  their  suffering  in  Ed 
ward  Dunsack's  room;  yet  not  so  much  theirs  as  her  grand 
father's.  He  took  his  place  at  the  head  of  the  table,  the 
grace  went  up  as  loudly  as  ever  above  their  heads;  but  in 
spite  of  that  she  saw  that  the  old  man  suddenly  looked  in 
finitely  spent.  His  knife  slipped  insecurely  and  scraped 
against  the  plate  in  fumbling  and  palsied  hands.  All  at 
once  she  had  a  feeling  of  gazing  straight  into  his  heart,  and 
finding  —  like  a  burning  ruby  hidden  in  earth  —  such  an 
agony  beneath  his  schooled  exterior  that  she  choked  think 
ing  about  it. 

Nettie  wondered  what  he  would  do  if  she  put  an  affec 
tionate  arm  about  his  neck  and  told  him  of  their  sympathy. 
She  knew  now  that  her  Uncle  Edward  had  been  smoking 
opium,  and  that  it  was  a  worse  vice,  more  hopeless  and  de 
structive,  than  drink.  But  she  was  certain  that  he'd  repel 
her;  he  looked  on  them  all,  Edward  Dunsack,  her  mother 
and  herself,  as  sinful,  "  degenerate  plants."  Even  now, 
she  realized,  there  was  no  weakening  of  his  spiritual  fibers 
such  as  had  plainly  overtaken  his  physical  being.  He  had 
a  blasting  contempt  for  the  unrighteous  flesh. 

When  they  had  risen  from  the  table,  Edward  Dunsack 
appeared  and  sinking  weakly  into  a  chair  demanded  a 
cup  of  tea.  He  knew  nothing  of  their  discovery,  of  the 

[164] 


JAVA    HEAD 

fact  that  they  had  stood  above  his  revolting  insensibility. 
After  the  tea  he  seemed  to  revive;  he  lighted  a  cheroot  and 
said  something  about  going  out.  It  wasn't  possible,  how 
ever;  his  knees  sagged  walking  the  length  of  the  floor;  in 
the  sitting  room  he  fell  into  a  leaden  apathy.  Nettie 
Vollar's  gaze  rested  on  the  volume  of  the  life  of  the  mis 
sionary  who  had  died  at  such  an  early  age  on  the  lie  de 
France.  The  lamplight  spread  over  the  depressing  mus 
tard  yellow  paint  of  the  woodwork  with  its  obviously  false 
graining  and  deepened  the  blackness  of  the  fireplace. 
Throughout  the  reading  of  the  Scripture  Edward  Dunsack 
never  shifted  his  slumped  position ;  his  face,  with  smudged 
closed  eyes,  seemed  fixed  in  a  skeptical  smile.  The  hol 
lows  of  his  temples  were  green.  The  reading  finished,  old 
Barzil  said : 

"  I  wish  to  speak  to  Edward  alone." 

The  latter  straightened  up.  "  Eh !  "  he  exclaimed. 
"  What?  "  He  resettled  his  stock  and  crossed  a  knee  with 
a  show  of  ease.  Nettie  followed  her  mother  from  the 
room.  Her  last  impression  was  that  of  a  startling  resem 
blance  between  the  young  man  and  old  —  her  uncle's  face 
was  as  ruined  as  the  other's  —  between  father  and  son. 
"  I  wish  he'd  go  away,"  her  mother  surprisingly  asserted; 
"  I  won't  sleep  for  thinking  of  him  lying  there  like  a 
corpse." 

"He'll  not,"  Nettie  replied,  musing;  "something  is 
holding  him  we  still  don't  know  of." 

She  had  lately  begun  to  realize  a  great  many  things  of 

which  only  a  month  before  she  had  not  been  aware  —  that 

sudden  illuminating  grasp  of  old  Barzil 's  inner  pain,  of 

her  mother's  wasted  spirit,  and  the  sense  that  some  un- 

[16S] 


JAVA    HEAD 

guessed  potent  motive  was  at  the  back  of  her  Uncle  Ed 
ward's  apparently  erratic  strolling  and  reiterations.  Net 
tie  stopped  to  wonder  a  little  at  the  change  in  herself :  she 
was  more  alive,  more  included.  There  were  no  reasons 
that  she  could  see  why  this  should  be  so;  never  had  the 
present,  the  entire  future,  been  darker.  With  her  deeper 
consciousness,  too,  came  an  increased  shrinking  from  life, 
a  greater  capacity  for  injury;  and  there  could  be  no  doubt 
that  it  was  an  older  Nettie  Vollar  who,  in  her  mirror,  re 
turned  the  questioning  in  the  resentful  black  eyes. 

No  further  mention  was  made  of  the  opium,  no  hint  es 
caped  from  the  two  men  of  what  Barzil  Dunsack  had  said 
to  his  son  after  the  evening  reading  of  the  Bible.  An 
evidence  of  the  miserable  episode  was  visible  for  a  while 
in  the  difficulty  of  any  attempted  general  conversation; 
then  that  died  away  and  everything  was  seemingly  as  it 
had  been  before.  But  the  rising  gayety  and  widespread 
public  preparations  at  the  approach  of  the  Fourth  of  July 
made  her  existence  drabber  than  ever.  There  was,  too, 
unusual  planning,  for  later  in  the  month  President  Polk 
was  to  be  in  Salem. 

The  various  military  organizations  drilled  incessantly: 
the  Salem  Light  Infantry,  the  Mechanic  Light  Infantry, 
the  Salem  Cadets  and  Independents  and  a  squad  of  the 
Salem  Artillery  might  be  seen  at  any  hour  of  the  morning 
or  early  evening  smartly  marching  and  countermarching, 
led  by  Flag's  or  the  Salem  Band.  Strange  constructions 
of  light  wood  climbed  in  Washington  Square  —  the  set 
pieces  of  the  celebrated  pyrotechnist  secured  at  a  "  stag 
gering  expense."  Preliminary  strings  of  firecrackers  were 

[166] 


JAVA    HEAD 

exploded  by  impatient  boys  and  the  dawn  of  the  holiday 
was  greeted  with  a  sustained  uproar  of  powder. 

All  this  was  communicated  to  Nettie  in  the  form  of  a 
determination  to  forget  the  dreariness  of  home  and  for 
once  anyhow  be  a  part  of  the  careless  holiday  town.  Ed 
ward  Dunsack  opened  the  day  by  deprecating  what  fire 
works  Salem  could  show  and  recalling  the  extravagant  art 
of  China  in  that  particular.  No  one,  he  said,  of  the  least 
moment  would  be  abroad  in  the  rabble;  and  he  intended 
to  spend  the  day  over  the  invoice  of  a  schooner  returned 
from  Curasao.  She  was  glad  of  this,  for  it  left  her  free 
to  get  an  uninterrupted  pleasure  from  the  morning  parade, 
the  floats  and  fantasies,  the  afternoon  drilling  in  Wash 
ington  Square,  and  see  the  last  colored  disk  of  the  fire 
works.  Maybe,  she  told  herself,  tying  the  becoming  ribbon 
of  her  bonnet  beneath  a  round  chin  with  a  lurking  dimple, 
maybe  she  wouldn't  come  back  home  once  during  the  entire 
day!  She  ignored,  in  the  rush  of  her  spirits,  even  her 
mother's  lonely  labors:  for  once  they'd  have  to  do  without 
her.  Nettie  took  a  scarlet  merino  shawl  for  the  cooler 
evening,  shook  forward  the  little  black  curls  about  her 
face,  and  hurried  away  from  Hardy  Street. 

She  was  swept  along  in  the  crowd  on  Essex  Street  until, 
before  the  office  of  the  Salem  Register,  she  found  a  place 
that  commanded  the  parade.  There  Nettie  lost  all  mem 
ory  of  the  dreariness  that  pressed  upon  her;  she  became 
one  of  the  throng,  applauding  the  members  of  the  East 
India  Marine  Society  carrying  the  palanquin  from  the 
Museum  in  native  dress,  or  stood  with  sentimental  tears 
blurring  her  vision.  The  parade  ended,  and  currents  of 
[167] 


JAVA    HEAD 

people  swept  toward  dinner;  but  she  stopped  at  a  baker's 
and  got  a  paper  of  seed  cakes,  made  in  the  shape  of  oak 
leaves  and  sat  contentedly  eating  them  in  the  Common. 

The  thought  of  Gerrit  Ammidon,  with  all  the  other 
deeper  aspects  of  her  life,  was  thrust  into  the  back  of  her 
consciousness ;  she  was  existing  as  she  breathed  —  without 
will;  the  instinctive  lighter  qualities  had  her  in  full  pos 
session.  She  felt  that  her  cheeks  were  glowing  and 
hummed  the  refrains  of  the  music  she  had  heard.  One 
by  one  the  military  companies  marched  into  the  Square. 
She  was  fascinated  by  the  tall  leather  helmets  and  silver 
straps  under  severe  young  lips.  The  Newburyport  men 
were  in  a  new  scarlet  uniform,  that  was  the  Boston  Brass 
Band  —  it  was  painted  on  the  bass  drum  —  with  the  Inde 
pendents;  there  were  the  Beverly  Taylor  Guards.  The 
massed  onlookers  filled  the  broad  plain. 

The  drilling  and  countermarching  proceeded  and  the 
afternoon  waned.  At  the  dispersal  of  the  spectacle,  when 
for  an  hour  or  two  Washington  Square  was  comparatively 
deserted,  when  the  sun  sank  lower  and  lower  over  the 
roofs  of  Brown  Street  and  the  gold  haze  thickened,  turning 
to  blue,  Nettie  became  quieter  but  no  less  happy.  The 
time  sped;  never  was  she  conscious  of  being  lonely,  by 
herself  in  a  multitude  composed  of  grouped  families  and 
friends.  It  was  all  such  a  beautiful  relief  to  the  other 
constant  dwelling  on  somber  and  hopeless  facts !  Already 
people  were  streaming  in  under  the  wooden  arched  gates 
for  the  evening  display;  already  she  could  see  a  star  in  the 
clear-shining  green  east. 

The  fireworks,  the  papers  said,  were  to  be  in  two  parts, 
ending  with  a  bombardment  of  Vera  Cruz,  five  hundred 

[168J 


JAVA    HEAD 

feet  long,  and  a  series  of  triumphant  arches  with  full- 
length  portraits  in  colored  lights  of  celebrated  Americans. 
There  was  a  sudden  salute  of  artillery,  and  a  flight  of 
rockets  soared  upward  in  long  flaming  curves,  dissolving 
in  showers  of  liquid  emerald  and  ruby  and  silver  against 
the  night.  Bengola  lights  casting  a  blue  glare  over  the 
standing  mob  and  farther  house  fronts  were  followed  by 
a  great  Peruvian  Cross,  a  silvery  fountain  of  water  and 
Grand  Representation  of  Bunker  Hill  Monument. 

With  this  the  first  came  all  too  soon  to  an  end,  and 
Nettie  was  folding  the  shawl  about  her  shoulders  when 
almost  the  entire  Ammidon  family  were  upon  her.  .  .  . 
In  an  instinctive  confusion  she  saw  William  Ammidon 
and  his  wife  with  their  daughters,  the  old  man,  Jeremy, 
and  Gerrit. 

They  stopped  before  her  in  an  assured,  not  unkindly  in- 
quisitiveness,  the  girls  fresh  and  bright-faced,  with  crisp 
lovely  clothes;  their  mother,  in  a  smart  mantle  and  little 
bonnet  with  knots  of  French  flowers,  greeted  her  with  a 
direct  question  tempered  by  a  smile.  William  Ammidon, 
smoking,  was  unconcerned;  while  Gerrit  stayed  obscured 
outside  the  group.  "  Whom  are  you  with,  Nettie?  "  Rhoda 
Ammidon  asked;  and  when  she  admitted  that  she  was 
alone  the  elder,  with  visible  disapproval,  asserted: 

"  That  won't  do  at  all  in  this  rough  assembly.  I  must 
see  that  you  are  taken  care  of."  She  hesitated,  with  a 
slight  frown  on  her  handsome  brow.  "  But  you  will  want 
to  see  the  rest  of  the  fireworks.  Yes,  what  you  must  do  is 
to  come  over  to  our  steps,  the  view  from  there  is  fairly 
good,  and  then  some  one  can  walk  home  with  you." 

They  moved  resolutely  forward,  giving  Nettie  Vollar 
[169] 


JAVA    HEAD 

no  opportunity  for  protest,  the  expression  of  what  she 
might  prefer;  and,  with  so  many  determined  minds,  she 
dropped  silently  into  their  progress.  She  was  beside 
Rhoda  Ammidon,  the  girls  trooped  on  before,  and  the  men 
—  Gerrit  Ammidon  —  followed.  Her  peace  of  mind  had 
been  broken  into  a  hundred  half-formed  doubts  and  acute 
questions.  She  wished  that  she  had  declined  to  go  with 
them:  the  invitation,  no,  command,  had  been  a  criticism, 
really.  Now,  after  so  long,  it  wasn't  necessary  for  them 
to  become  suddenly  responsible  for  her. 

The  happiness  of  the  day  sank  a  little,  thoughts  of  her 
mother  and  grandfather  and  Uncle  Edward  returned. 
But,  at  the  same  time,  she  realized  that  she  was  near  Ger 
rit  once  more.  This  made  a  confusion  of  her  emotions 
that  hid  what  she  most  felt  about  him.  It  wasn't  a  prox 
imity  that  meant  anything,  however;  it  had  been  utterly 
different  when  he  came  to  see  her  before  his  marriage.- 
Yet,  just  the  fact  of  his  being  close  behind  her,  and  that 
she  would  be  on  the  steps  at  the  Ammidons'  with  him, 
undoubtedly  had  a  power  to  stir  her  heart. 

It  brought,  like  her  carefree  excursion,  a  certain  momen 
tary  glow,  a  warmth,  without  relation  to  what  had  gone 
before  or  might  follow;  there  was  the  same  quality  of 
momentary  rest,  refreshment,  complete  and  isolated  as  a 
jewel  in  a  ring.  She  didn't  analyze  it  further;  but  drifted 
with  the  vigorous  chattering  tide  of  the  Ammidons. 

They  arrived  at  the  impressive  entrance  open  on  a  high 
dim  interior.  Jeremy  and  William  Ammidon  went  in, 
Rhoda  lingered  while  a  chair  was  brought  for  her,  and 
Sidsall  and  Camilla,  Laurel  and  Janet  ranged  themselves 
facing  the  Square.  Gerrit  hung  silent  in  the  doorway. 

[170] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Perhaps  Taou  Yuen  will  come  down,"  Rhoda  Ammi- 
don  suggested,  and  Nettie's  throat  was  pinched  at  the  pos 
sibility  of  seeing  Gerrit's  Chinese  wife.  But  he  answered 
shortly  in  the  negative.  Taou  Yuen  preferred  to  stay  in 
her  room;  the  view  from  her  window  was  better  than  this. 
The  latter  was  easily  possible,  for  here  the  set  pieces  were 
almost  unintelligible:  an  impressive  beehive  could  be  seen 
surrounded  by  swarming  golden  bees,  a  pyramid  of  Roman 
candles  discharged  their  rushes  of  colored  balls  and 
streamers;  but  the  bombardment  of  Vera  Cruz  was  a  cause 
of  bitter  complaint  to  the  children. 

The  fireworks  had  ceased  to  have  the  slightest  signifi 
cance  for  Nettie;  she  was  luxuriating  in  the  suavity  of  the 
Ammidon  steps  and  company.  It  seemed  to  her  that  an 
actual  air  of  ease  rolled  out  over  her  from  within.  Seen 
from  her  place  of  vantage  the  great  throng  in  the  Square 
was  without  feature,  the  passers-by  on  Pleasant  Street  — 
as  Edward  Dunsack  and  herself  had  been  —  were  unim 
portant.  The  massive  portico  and  dignified  fence,  the 
sense  of  spaciousness  and  gardens  and  lofty  formal  ceil 
ings,  the  feeling  of  fine  silks  and  round  clear  direct  voices, 
of  servants  for  everything,  everyone,  transcended  in  force 
all  her  speculations.  She  was  familiar  —  who  wasn't  in 
Salem?  —  with  the  meaning  of  the  house'  name,  Java 
Head.  It  was  more,  quite  heaven. 

Thoughts  of  Gerrit  winged  in  and  out  of  her  mind  like 
wayward  birds.  She  turned  with  studied  caution  and 
glanced  swiftly  but  intently  at  as  miu^  of  his  countenance 
as  she  could  see.  Her  memory  vividly  supplied  the  rest. 
There  wasn't  another  like  it  —  one  so  clear  and  compelling 
to  read  —  in  the  world. 

[171] 


JAVA    HEAD 

The  past  in  which  he  had  had  a  part  seemed  like  an 
impossibly  happy  dream.  She  was  hardly  able  to  believe 
that  he  had  been  in  their  sitting  room,  walked  with  her  in 
the  evening  to  the  grassy  edge  of  the  harbor,  or  held  her 
fingers  in  his  hard  cool  grasp.  Now  she  wondered  if  he 
were  contented.  She  couldn't  quite  decide  from  glimpses 
of  his  face;  but  something  that  had  nothing  to  do  with 
vision  disturbed  her  with  the  certainty  that  he  was 
troubled.  It  might  mean  unhappiness,  but  she  wasn't 
sure. 

"  Now  there  go  the  arches !  "  a  young  voice  exclaimed, 
"  and  I  just  can't  see  anything.  You'd  never  know  at  all 
it  was  a  temple  of  eight  columns.  Oh,  look  —  there's  a 
number  coming  out,  '  July  fourth,  seventeen  seventy-six.' '; 
A  tide  of  hand  clapping  swept  over  the  dark  masses. 
"  No,"  Laurel  continued,  "  that's  Salem.  .  .  .  It's  Wash 
ington,  no,  General  Taylor." 

The  amazing  day,  Nettie  realized,  was  over,  the  people 
flowed  back  through  the  gates  like  a  lake  breaking  in 
streams  from  its  bank;  there  was  a  stir  on  the  steps. 
Looking  up  she  saw  that  the  stars  were  obscured,  and  a  low 
rumble  of  thunder  sounded  from  a  distance,  a  flash  lit  the 
horizon.  Now  she  must  go  back,  return  to  Hardy  Street, 
to  her  bitter  grandfather  like  an  iron  statue  eaten  by  rust 
and  storms,  to  Edward  Dunsack  following  her  with  his 
dragging  feet  and  thin  insinuating  voice,  to  her  hopeless 
mother. 

"  It's  the  powdeT ,  she  heard,  about  what  she  had  no 
conception.  Rhoda  Ammidon  turned  decidedly  to  her. 
"It  was  nice  to  have  you,  Nettie,"  she  declared;  "but 
we  must  see  about  getting  you  safely  home.  The  carriage 

[172] 


JAVA    HEAD 

would  be  best  since  it's  threatening  rain."  She  didn't, 
she  replied,  want  to  give  them  so  much  bother,  she  often 
went  on  errands  after  supper,  she'd  be  all  right  — 

"  Nonsense,"  Mrs.  Ammidon  interrupted  impatiently. 
Then  Gerrit  advanced  from  the  doorway.  "  I'll  walk 
down  with  her,"  he  said  almost  roughly.  "  No  need  to 
take  the  horses  out  so  late."  Nettie  Vollar  thought  that 
his  sister-in-law's  mouth  tightened  in  protest,  but  he  gave 
them  no  chance  for  further  argument.  He  descended  the 
steps  with  a  quick  grinding  tread,  and  she  was  forced  to 
hurry  through  her  acknowledgments  in  order  to  overtake 
him. 

The  night  at  once  absorbed  them. 

The  air,  charged  with  the  fumes  of  gunpowder  and 
rumbling  with  low  intermittent  thunder,  was  oppressive 
and  disturbing.  Gerrit 's  head  was  exactly  opposite  her 
own,  and  she  could  see  his  profile,  pale  and  still,  moving 
on  a  changing  dark  background.  He  walked  with  the 
short  firm  stride  men  acquire  on  the  unsteady  decks  of 
vessels,  swinging  his  arms  but  slightly.  Neither  spoke. 
The  rain,  Nettie  saw,  was  hanging  off;  probably  it  would 
not  reach  Salem.  Washington  Square  was  already  empty 
except  for  a  small  obscure  stir  by  the  scaffolding  for  the 
fireworks.  A  murmur  of  young  voices  came  from  a  door 
on  Bath  Street.  Such  minute  observations  filled  her  mind; 
beneath  their  surface  she  was  conscious  of  a  deep,  a 
fathomless,  turmoil.  It  was  a  curious  sensation,  curious 
because  she  couldn't  tell  whether  it  was  happiness  or 
misery.  One  now  exactly  resembled  the  other  to  Nettie 
Vollar. 

She  grasped,  however,  one  difference  —  it  was  happiness 
[173] 


JAVA    HEAD 

now,  the  misery  belonged  to  to-morrow.  But  suddenly 
that  last  unrealized  fact  —  at  once  immaterial  and  the 
most  leaden  reality  of  all  —  lost  its  weight.  The  greater 
freedom  she  had  lately  grown  into  became  an  absolute  in 
difference,  a  half  willful  and  half  automatic  shutting 
of  her  eyes  to  everything  but  the  present,  the  actuality  of 
Gerrit  Ammidon  walking  by  her  side.  She  wanted  him 
to  speak,  so  that  she  could  discover  his  thoughts,  feelings; 
yet  she  was  reluctant  to  have  their  companionship  of 
silence  broken:  words,  almost  all  the  possible  terms  she 
could  imagine,  would  only  emphasize  the  distance  between 
them. 

She  was  thinking  of  one  now  —  a  word  he  had  never 
pronounced,  but  which  she  felt  had  been,  however  ob 
scurely,  at  the  back  of  the  attention  he  had  paid  her:  love. 
It  was  a  queer  thing.  It  seemed  to  be  —  everyone  agreed 
that  it  was  —  of  the  greatest,  perhaps  the  first,  importance; 
and  yet  all  sorts  of  other  considerations,  some  insignifi 
cant  and  others  mean  and  more,  yes  —  cowardly,  held  it 
in  check,  drove  it  back  out  of  sight,  as  you  might  hur 
riedly  shut  some  shabby  object  into  a  closet  at  the  arrival 
of  visitors. 

"How  have  you  been?"  he  demanded  in  the  abrupt 
voice  of  the  expression  of  his  determination  to  see  her 
home.  Well  enough,  she  assured  him,  if  he  meant  her 
health.  He  glanced  at  her  with  somber  eyes.  "  Not  alto 
gether,"  he  admitted;  "it  included  your  family,  things 
generally." 

"  They  are  as  bad  as  possible,"  she  told  him.  She 
admitted  this  frankly,  a  part  of  her  entire  surrender  to  the 
moment,  careless  of  how  it  might  affect  him.  "  They 

[174] 


JAVA    HEAD 

would  be,"  he  muttered  savagely.  "  It's  a  habit  .  .  . 
here/'  The  "  here,"  she  knew,  referred  to  life  on  shore; 
his  gloomy  attitude  toward  the  management  and  affairs  of 
the  land  had  caused  her  a  great  deal  of  precious  laughter. 
He  had  revealed  a  most  astonishing  ignorance  of  neces 
sities  that  she  had  understood  instinctively  when  hardly 
more  than  a  child;  and  this  simplicity  had,  as  much  as 
anything,  brought  her  affection  for  him  to  life.  At  the 
same  time  she  in  particular  had  felt  the  justice  of  a  great 
many  of  his  charges.  But  no  one  could  reasonably  hope 
for  the  sort  of  world  —  a  world  as  orderly  and  trim  as  that 
of  a  narrow  ship  —  he  thought  should  be  brought  about  by 
a  mere  command.  Nettie  wished  that  it  could!  She 
sighed,  gazing  at  him. 

"Then  it's  no  better  than  before?  "  he  asked,  adding, 
with  a  descriptive  gesture:  "  the  town  and  people?  " 

"  I  hardly  speak  to  ten  in  a  year,  outside  the  stores  and 
like  that.  Of  course  they  nod  going  into  church,  or  a 
lady,  I  mean  really,  your  sister-in-law,  will  say  something 
nice,  even  do  what  you  saw  to-night.  Though  it's  the 
first  time  anything  like  that  has  happened." 

She  caught  a  repressed  bitter  oath. 

"  I  suppose  I'll  get  used  to  it,"  she  continued.  "  No, 
I  won't,"  she  added  differently;  "never,  never,  never." 

"  If  you  were  a  man  now  — "  he  said  with  an  incredible 
stupidity. 

She  wondered  angrily  if  he'd  rather  have* her  a  man; 
there  had  been  a  time,  Nettie  reflected,  when  such  a  pos 
sibility  would  have  stirred  him  to  violent  protest.  And 
this  brought  out  the  reflection  that,  while  at  one  time  he 
might  have  cared  for  her,  now  perhaps  he  was  merely  sorry 
[175] 


JAVA    HEAD 

for  her  unhappiness.  Yes,  this  must  be  it.  She  had  a 
momentary  fatal  impulse  to  throw  back  at  him  scornfully 
any  such  small  kindness.  She  didn't,  she  told  herself, 
want  condescending  sympathy.  What  silenced  her  was  the 
sudden  knowledge  that  she  did;  she  wanted  anything  what 
soever  from  Gerrit  Ammidon.  The  fact  that  he  had  a 
Chinese  wife  was  powerless  to  alter  her  feeling  in  the 
smallest  degree.  On  the  contrary,  she  was  shocked  to 
find  that  it  had  increased  immensely,  it  was  growing  with 
every  minute. 

She  wondered  drearily  if  her  stubborn  love  —  the  term 
took  its  place  without  remark  in  the  procession  of  her 
thoughts  —  for  Gerrit  didn't,  in  spite  of  her  protest  to 
the  contrary,  stamp  her  as  quite  bad.  Perhaps  her  grand 
father  was  right  about  them  all  —  her  mother  and  Uncle 
Edward  and  herself,  and  they  were  wicked,  lost!  The 
energy  with  which  she  had  combated  this  charge  now 
faced  by  the  circumstance  of  her  realized  affection  for  a 
man  married  to  some  one  else,  even  Chinese,  wavered.  All 
the  cheerful  influences  of  the  day,  rising  to  the  supreme 
tranquil  hour  on  the  Ammidon  porch,  sank  to  dejection;  it 
was  like  the  flight  of  the  rockets. 

She  walked  listlessly,  her  brain  was  numb;  she  was 
terribly  tired.  Gerrit  Ammidon's  head  was  bent  and  she 
was  unable  to  see  his  expression.  He  might  even  have 
forgotten,  by  the  token  of  his  self-absorbed  progress,  that 
she  was  at  his  side. 

' "  There's  going  to  be  a  stir  in  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and 
Saltonstone,"  he  said  presently,  "  when  my  father  hears 
of  the  new  program.  Everything  is  turning  to  the  fast 
est  California  runs  possible.  William  and  James  Sal- 

[176] 


JAVA    HEAD 

tonstone  want  me  to  take  command  of  a  clipper.  But  I 
find  I'm  like  my  father,  Nettie;  all  my  experience  has 
been  in  the  East  and  the  China  service.  I'm  used  to  it. 
I'd  never  get  on  navigating  a  passenger  boat,  a  packet 
ship,  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco  and  San  Francisco  to 
Boston.  The  other's  in  my  blood,  too  —  running  the 
northeast  trades  to  Brazil  and  coming  up  into  the  south 
west  passage  winds  for  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  A  long 
reach  nearly  to  Australia  and  then  north  again  to  the  In 
dian  Ocean  and  southeast  trades. 

"  I'm  fit  for  that,  for  long  voyages,  a  blue-water  sailor 
and  all  it  means;  but  battering  back  and  forward  round 
the  Horn  with  my  deck  cluttered  up  by  prospectors 
and  shore  crews  the  mates  would  have  to  slam  into  the 
rigging  — !  "  His  exclamation  refused  every  face  of  such 
a  possibility.  She  understood  his  necessity  completely; 
and  the  brief  account  of  such  far  happy  journeys,  safe  from 
everything  that  Salem  had  come  to  mean  for  her,  filled 
her  with  longing. 

"I'm  beginning  to  see,"  he  took  up  again  the  self-ex 
amination,  "  that  I  am  to  blame  for  a  good  deal  that  I've 
found  fault  with  in  others.  I  mean  that  I'm  a  different 
variety  of  animal,  and,  naturally,  no  judge  of  the  kinds 
of  holes  they  live  in  or  the  way  their  affairs  are  managed." 

"  You  are  worlds  better !  "  she  cried. 

He  turned  to  her,  obviously  startled,  and  she  held  for  a 
long  breath  his  unguarded  intense  gaze.  "  Not  very  use 
ful,  I  am  afraid,"  he  replied  at  last;  "  not  to-day,  anyhow. 
I  belong  to  a  life  that  is  dying,  Nettie;  mark  my  words, 
dying  if  not  already  dead.  And  I'm  newfangled  to  my 
father.  It  goes  as  quickly  as  that." 
[177] 


JAVA    HEAD 

This  was  a  fresh  mood  to  all  her  knowledge  of  his  im 
patient  arrogance,  and  one  that  sent  her  to  him  in  a 
passionate  unperceived  emotion.  They  had  arrived  at  her 
home  and  were  waiting  aimless  and  silent.  Beyond,  the 
gate  to  the  yard  was  standing  open,  and  Nettie  saw  that 
his  discovery  of  the  fact  had  occurred  at  the  identical 
moment  of  her  own.  She  made  an  involuntary  movement 
forward  and  he  followed  her  through  to  the  blurred  tangle 
of  bushes  and  bare  trodden  earth.  Mutely  they  turned  to 
the  sod  spread  at  the  harbor. 

The  thunder  had  died  away,  but  pale  sheets  of  reflected 
lightning  hovered  at  short  intervals  low  in  the  sky. 
Directly  above  them  stars  shone  again.  The  window  of 
the  sitting  room  still  bore  the  illumination  of  the  lamp 
within;  and  Nettie  could  picture  her  mother,  with  stained 
and  rough  hands  loose  ,on  their  wrists,  opposite  Barzil 
Dunsack's  gaunt  set  countenance. 

"  You  said  something  about  things  as  bad  as  possible." 

In  a  level  voice  she  told  him  about  her  discovery  of 
Edward  Dunsack  unconscious  in  his  black  wrap  on  the 
bed.  "  I  thought  he  had  died,"  she  repeated  almost 
monotonously;  "  he  had  such  a  yellow  gone  look." 

"  But  that  can't  be  allowed!  "  he  cried.  "  You  mustn't 
see  it.  Indecent,  worse.  The  beast  will  have  to  be  re 
moved.  No  one  will  hear  of  his  staying  about  with  two 
women  and  a  fanatical  old  man."  She  was  afraid  that  he 
would  go  into  the  house  at  once  and  appear  with  her  uncle, 
very  much  in  the  manner  of  a  dog  with  a  rat.  Her  sense 
of  a  worldly  knowledge,  a  philosophy  of  realization,  far 
deeper  than  his  own  returned.  Things  couldn't  be  dis 
posed  of  in  that  easy  manner;  it  was  probable  that  they 

[178] 


JAVA    HEAD 

couldn't  be  disposed  of,  righted,  at  all.  Her  mother,  with 
her  help,  must  continue  to  keep  Barzil's  home :  there  was 
no  other  place  for  Edward  Dunsack  to  go.  "  He  won't 
hurt  us,"  she  said  vaguely.  "  It's  principally  bad  for  him. 
Then,  at  first,  I  didn't  know.  You  get  used  to  so  much." 

He,  Gerrit  Ammidon,  wouldn't  have  it,  he  asserted  in  a 
heated  return  of  his  familiar  dictatorial  manner.  The 
fellow  would  be  out  of  there  to-morrow.  It  was  a  damned 
unendurable  outrage ! 

She  smiled  softly  and  laid  a  momentary  hand  on 
his  sleeve.  "  That's  nothing,  Gerrit;  nothing  compared 
to  the  rest,  to  me."  He  frowned  down  at  her  out  of  the 
gloom. 

"  What  am  I  to  do?  "  she  asked. 

He  again  cursed  Salem  and  the  world  with  which 
he  had  proclaimed  himself  out  of  date  and  sympathy. 
This,  while  it  communicated  to  her  a  certain  warm  com 
fort,  resolved  nothing,  made  no  reply  to  her  question.  To 
morrow  offered  precisely  the  same  hopeless  outlook  of 
yesterday.  No  answer  from  Gerrit,  Gerrit  married,  was 
possible.  She  saw  that. 

"I'm  not  fit  to  go  around  on  land  blundering  and  set 
ting  tongues  to  clapping,"  he  declared.  "  I  ought  to  be 
locked  in  my  cabin  when  the  ship's  in  port,  and  let  out 
only  after  sail's  made  again." 

She  heard  a  slight  movement  in  the  grass;  and  turning 
sharply  caught  the  vague  outline  of  a  man,  the  thin  un 
substantial  shape  of  Edward  Dunsack.  He  vanished  im 
mediately;  Gerrit,  absorbed  in  bitter  thought,  had  missed 
him.  Strangely  her  uncle  only  filled  her  mind  with  the 
image  of  China,  the  China  that  had  ruined  him,  and 
[179] 


JAVA    HEAD 

which,  too,  in  the  form  of  a  woman,  a  Manchu,  had  de 
stroyed  the  hope  of  any  acceptable  existence  of  her  own. 

"Great  pretensions  and  idiotic  results,"  he  went  on; 
"  no  ballast.  Take  what  your  grandfather  said  to  me  — 
nothing  in  that  unexpected  or  to  drive  a  man  off.  Yet  off 
I  go  and  — "  he  halted  oddly,  just  as  her  breath  was  sus 
pended  at  the  admittance  which  she  was  certain  must  fol 
low.  But  he  fell  into  another  glooming  silence. 

After  all,  she  couldn't  expect  him  to  continue  that  de 
velopment.  A  different  man  might;  and  Nettie  wasn't 
sure  of  her  refusal  to  listen  ...  to  the  end.  But  she 
was  familiar  with  Gerrit's  unbending  conception  of  the 
necessity  of  truth  alone.  If  he  married  a  woman,  yellow, 
black,  anything,  he  would  perform  the  obligation  to  the 
entire  boundary  of  his  promise.  Good  and  bad  seemed 
equally  united  against  her.  Little  flashes  of  resentment 
struck  through  her  leaden  conviction  that  all  this  was 
useless. 

"  I  must  be  of  some  use  to  you." 

But,  Nettie  realized,  there  was  only  one  way  in  which 
he  could  help  her;  only  one  thing  she  wanted  —  could 
take  —  from  him.  She  was  terrified  at  the  completeness 
with  which  love  had  possessed  her,  making  every  other 
fact  and  consideration  of  little  interest  or  importance. 
Suddenly  it  seemed  as  if  she  were  being  swept  by  an  over 
whelming  current  farther  and  farther  out  from  safety  into 
a  bottomless  immensity  that  would  claim  her  life. 

"  Yet,"  he  cried,  "  if  I  lift  a  hand,  here,  in  Salem,  if  I  as 
much  as  cross  the  street  to  speak  to  you  —  the  clapping 
tongues!  I  can  do  you  nothing  but  harm.  Though 
Rhoda  might — " 

[180] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  don't  want  your  Rhoda !  "  she  interrupted  passion 
ately.  "  I've  managed  without  them  all  up  to  now."  He 
raised  his  arms  in  a  hopeless  gesture.  "  Nothing's  to  be 
done,"  she  concluded.  "  I  saw  that  all  along;  that  is,  this 
last  time." 

"It's  late,"  he  muttered  absently;  "you  have  had  a 
day."  He  turned  mechanically  and  moved  away  from  the 
indefinite  black  rim  of  the  harbor.  The  lamp  in  the  sitting 
room  had  been  extinguished,  the  house  was  dark.  A  brief 
embarrassment  seized  her  as  he  stood  trying  vainly  to  find 
something  confident,  even  adequate,  to  say  for  farewell. 
And  as  the  stir  of  his  footfalls  died  away  up  Hardy 
Street  the  memory  of  his  last  futile  words  mocked  her 
laboring  heart. 

She  turned  and  faced  Edward  Dunsack,  advancing 
from  an  obscurity  deeper  than  the  rest.  He  murmured 
approvingly,  she  caught  words  of  commendation  and  un 
speakable  reassurance.  She  hurried  away  blindly,  sick 
to  the  inmost  depths  of  her  being.  The  morning,  when 
she  had  tied  her  gay  bonnet  ribbons  and  started  out  with 
the  scarlet  merino  shawl  on  her  arm,  seemed  to  belong  to 
a  long,  long  time  ago,  to  a  girl.  .  .  .  The  popping  of  a 
final  string  of  firecrackers  died  outside. 


[181] 


VIII 

THE  dejection,  the  sense  of  a  difference  that  held 
from  him  any  comprehension  of  the  vast  maze 
of  shore  life,  persisted  as  Gerrit  Ammidon 
walked  toward  home.  It  was  such  an  unusual  feeling  that 
he  was  conscious  of  it;  he  examined  and  speculated  upon 
his  despondency  as  if  it  had  been  something  actually 
before  him.  The  result  of  this  was  a  still  increased  dis 
turbance.  He  didn't  like  such  strange  qualities  arbi 
trarily  forcing  their  way  into  his  being  —  he  had  the  navi 
gator's  necessity  for  a  clear  understanding  of  the  combined 
elements  within  and  without  which  resulted  in  a  har 
monious,  or  at  least  predictable,  movement.  He  distrusted 
all  fogs.  In  a  manner  the  course  before  him  was  plain 
—  married  to  Taou  Yuen,  shipmaster  in  his  family's  firm, 
he  had  simple  duties  to  perform,  no  part  of  which  included 
sailing  in  strange  or  dangerous  waters;  yet  though  this  was 
beyond  argument  he  was  still  troubled  by  a  great  number 
of  unpleasant  conditions  of  mind  and  obscure  pressures. 
Gradually,  however,  his  normal  indignation  returned, 
the  contempt  for  a  society  without  perceptible  justice,  cen 
tered  principally  in  what  Nettie  Vollar  had  had  from  life. 
This,  he  assured  himself,  wasn't  because  he  was  in  any 
way  involved  with  her;  but  because  it  was  such  a  flagrant 
case.  She  was  a  very  nice  girl.  It  was  entirely  allow 
able  that  he  should  admit  that.  As  a  fact,  he  warmly 
felt  that  he  was  her  friend;  the  past  justified,  no,  in- 

[182] 


JAVA    HEAD 

sisted  on,  that  at  least.  He  wondered  exactly  how  fond 
he  had  been  of  her  —  in  other  words,  how  near  he  had 
come  to  marrying  her.  It  had  been  an  obvious  possibility, 
decidedly;  but  the  desire  had  never  become  actual.  No, 
his  feeling  for  her  had  never  broken  the  bounds  of  a 
natural  liking  and  a  desire  to  secure  decent  treatment  for 
her.  The  last  had  been  vain. 

If  his  mental  searching  had  ended  there  it  would  have 
presented  no  difficulties,  created  no  fog ;  but,  unfortunately, 
there  was  another  element  which  he  admitted  with  great 
reluctance,  an  inborn  discomfort.  Although  he  had  been 
clear  about  what  had  actually  happened  with  Nettie  there 
was  reasonable  doubt  that  the  same  limitations  had 
operated  with  her.  Briefly  she  had  missed  him  more  than 
he  had  realized.  He  explained  this  to  his  sense  of  innate 
masculine  diffidence  by  the  loneliness  of  her  days.  She 
had  missed  him  .  .  .  something  within  whispered  that  she 
still  did.  Women,  he  remembered  hearing,  were  like  that. 

In  the  light,  the  possibility,  of  this  he  saw  that  he  had 
done  her  a  great  wrong. 

It  had  been  his  damned  headlong  ignorance  of  the  dan 
gerous  quality  of  life,  the  irresponsibility  of  a  child  with 
gunpowder.  With  all  this  in  his  mind  it  seemed  doubly 
imperative  that  he  should  do  something  for  her;  he  owed 
her,  he  was  forced  to  admit,  more  than  a  mere  impersonal 
consideration.  His  thoughts  returned  unbidden  to  the 
fact  that  she  —  she  had  liked  him.  He  insisted  almost 
angrily  on  the  past  tense,  but  it  surprised  him  and  gave 
him  a  perceptible  warm  glow.  Nettie  was  very  pleasing: 
he  inferred  that  she  was  a  creature  of  deep  emotions,  affec 
tions. 

[183] 


JAVA    HEAD 

At  this  he  shook  himself  abruptly  —  such  things  were 
not  permissible.  Gerrit  felt  a  swift  sense  of  shame;  they 
injured  Nettie.  His  mind  shifted  to  Taou  Yuen.  He 
found  her  asleep  on  the  day  bed  she  preferred,  her  elab 
orate  headdress  resting  above  the  narrow  pillow  of  black 
wicker.  He  could  distinguish  her  face,  pallid  in  the  blue 
gloom,  and  a  delicate,  half-shut  hand.  He  was  flooded 
with  the  intense  admiration  which  increasingly  formed  his 
chief  thought  of  her;  this,  with  the  obvious  racial  dif 
ference,  put  her,  as  it  were,  on  an  elevation  —  a  beauti 
fully  lacquered  vase  above  his  own  blundering  person. 
She  was  calm,  serious  and  good,  in  the  absolute  Western 
definitions  of  those  terms;  she  had  her  emotions  under 
faultless  control.  Taou  Yuen  should  be  an  ideal  wife  for 
any  man;  she  was,  he  corrected  the  form  sharply.  All 
that  he  knew  of  her  was  admirable;  the  part  which  con 
stantly  baffled  him  didn't  touch  their  relationship. 

It  was  reasonable  to  expect  small  differences  between 
her  and  Salem:  at  times  her  calm  chilled  him  by  a  swift 
glimpse  of  utter  coldness,  at  times  he  would  have  liked  her 
gravity  to  melt  into  something  less  than  ivory  perfection; 
even  her  goodness  had  oppressed  him.  The  last  hadn't  the 
human  quality  of,  for  example,  Nettie  Vollar's  goodness, 
colored  by  rebellion,  torn  by  doubt,  and  yet  triumphing. 

If  he  only  understood  the  three  religions  of  China,  if  he 
were  an  intellectual  man,  Gerrit  realized,  he  could  have 
grasped  his  wife  more  fully.  He  was  completely  ignorant 
of  Chinese  history,  of  all  the  forces  that  had  united  to  form 
Taou  Yuen.  For  instance:  he  was  unable  to  reconcile 
her  elevated  spirit  with  the  "  absurd  superstitions  "  that 
influenced  almost  her  every  act  —  the  enormous  number  of 

[184] 


JAVA    HEAD 

lucky  and  unlucky  days,  the  coin  hung  on  his  bed,  the 
yellow  charm  against  sickness  and  red  against  evil  spirits; 
only  yesterday  she  had  burnt  a  paper  form  representing 
thunder  and  drunk  its  ashes  in  a  cup  of  tea.  She  was 
tremendously  in  earnest  about  the  evil  spirits  —  they  were, 
she  maintained,  lurking  everywhere,  in  all  shapes  and  de 
grees  of  harm.  Edward  Dunsack  was  possessed,  she  de 
clared;  but  he  had  pointed  out  that  opium  was  a  sufficient 
explanation  of  anything  evil  in  him,  and  that  it  was 
unnecessary  to  look  for  a  more  fantastic  reason. 

He  lay  awake  for  a  comparatively  long  while,  as  he  had 
several  times  lately,  divided  between  his  consciousness  and 
the  regular  breathing  of  his  wife.  If  the  past  had  brought 
Nettie  Vollar  to  depend  on  him  in  some  slight  degree  Taou 
Yuen  did  so  absolutely:  except  for  him  she  was  lost  in  a 
strange  world.  Yet  Taou  Yuen  didn't  seem  helpless  in  the 
manner  of  Nettie.  He  had  once  before  thought  of  the 
former  as  finely  tempered  metal.  Her  transcendent  resig 
nation,  with  its  consequent  lack  of  sympathetic  contact 
with  the  imperfect  humanity  of  —  well,  Nettie,  gave 
Taou  Yuen  a  dangerous  freedom  from  all  that  bound 
Salem  in  comparative  safety. 

He  dressed  first,  as  usual,  in  the  morning,  while  she 
stirred  only  enough  to  get  her  pipe  and  tobacco,  on  the 
floor  at  her  side.  Outside,  the  elms  were  losing  their  fresh 
greenness  in  the  dusty  film  of  midsummer;  the  Square 
held  an  ugly  litter  from  the  fireworks  of  last  evening. 
William,  too,  was  about,  but  he  was  uncommunicative,  his 
brow  scored  in  a  frown.  Their  father,  always  down  be 
fore  the  others,  had  returned  from  the  inspection  of  his 
trees,  and  was  tramping  back  and  forth  in  the  library. 

[185] 


JAVA    HEAD 

The  elder  seemed  unrested  by  the  night,  his  skin,  as  Rhoda 
had  pointed  out,  was  baggy. 

"  Now  that  the  Nautilus  is  afloat  again,"  Jeremy  Am- 
midon  said,  "  you'll  want  to  be  at  sea."  Examining  this 
natural  conclusion,  Gerrit  was  surprised,  startled,  to  find 
that  it  was  no  longer  true.  For  the  first  time  in  his  mem 
ory  he  was  not  anxious  to  be  under  sail.  This  of  course 
was  caused  by  a  natural  perplexity  about  Taou  Yuen's 
comfort  and  happiness. 

"  I  don't  know  what  the  firm's  plans  are  for  me,"  he 
answered  cautiously.  "  There  is  some  talk  of  taking  me 
out  of  the  China  trade  for  the  California  runs.  I 
shouldn't  like  that." 

Jeremy  was  turning  at  his  secretary,  and  he  stopped  to 
pound  his  fist  on  its  narrow  ledge.  "  It's  that  damned 
Griffiths  again  and  his  cursed  jackknife  hull!  "  he  ex 
claimed.  The  dark  tide  suffused  his  countenance.  Ger 
rit  studied  him  thoughtfully:  he  didn't  know  just  how 
much  William  had  yet  told  their  father  about  the  sweep 
ing  changes  taking  place  in  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and 
Saltonstone.  He  did  see,  however,  that  it  was  unwise 
to  excite  the  old  gentleman  unduly. 

"  I  was  saying  only  yesterday,"  he  put  in  pacifically, 
"  that  you  and  myself  are  getting  to  be  old  models  — "  he 
broke  off  as  William  entered  the  library.  The  latter  evi 
dently  grasped  at  once  the  subject  of  their  discussion,  for 
he  went  on  in  a  firm  voice  somewhat  contradicted  by  a 
restrained  but  palpable  anxiety: 

"  Now,  father,  this  was  bound  to  come  up  and  you 
must  sit  down  and  listen  quietly."  The  elder,  on  the 
verge  of  a  tempestuous  reply,  constrained  himself  to  a 

[186] 


JAVA    HEAD 

painful  attention.  "  It's  useless  to  point  out  to  you  the 
beneficial  changes  in  sea  carrying,  for  you  are  certain  to 
deny  their  good  and  drag  out  the  past.  So  I  am  simply 
forced  to  tell  you  that  after  careful  consideration  we  have 
decided  to  line  the  firm  with  the  events  of  the  day  and  hold 
our  place  in  the  growing  pressure  of  competition.  This 
may  sound  brutal,  but  it  was  forced  on  us  by  the  attitude 
you  have  adopted.  Shortly,  this  is  what  we  intend,  in 
fact  are  doing: 

"  Orders  have  been  placed  with  George  Raynes  at 
Portsmouth  and  Jackson  up  in  Boston  for  clippers  of  a 
thousand  and  twelve  hundred  tons  and  another  is  almost 
ready  to  be  launched  from  Curtis'  Chelsea  shipyard.  It 
oughtn't  to  be  necessary  to  call  your  attention  again  to  the 
fact  that  the  Sea  Witch  has  brought  the  passage  from 
Hong  Kong  to  something  like  three  months.  The  profits 
of  the  California  trade  will  be  enormous  and  depend  en 
tirely  on  speed. 

"  I'll  admit  that  this  is  a  big  thing,  it  will  cut  sharply 
into  our  funds  —  something  like  a  quarter  of  a  million 
dollars.  But,  if  you  will  be  patient  for  a  little  only,  I  can 
promise  that  you'll  see  astonishing  returns.  At  the  same 
time  we  have  no  intention  of  giving  up  China  and  India, 
but  we'll  limit  ourselves  more  closely  in  the  nature  of  the 
cargoes,  practically  nothing  but  tea  unbroken  from  Canton 
to  Boston.  I'll  be  glad  to  go  into  all  this  in  detail  at 
the  countinghouse,  where  we  have  the  statistics  and  speci 
fications." 

To  Gerrit's  surprise  Jeremy  Ammidon  sat  quietly  at 
the  end  of  William's  speech;  he  wasn't  even  looking  at 
them,  but  had  his  gaze  bent  upon  the  floor.  There  was  a 

[187] 


JAVA    HEAD 

commanding,  even  impressive,  quality  in  his  silence  that 
forced  the  respect  of  both  his  sons.  More  —  it  made  Ger- 
rit  overwhelmingly  conscious  of  his  affection,  his  deep 
admiration,  for  his  father.  He  recalled  the  latter's  mem 
orable  voyage  in  the  little  Two  Capes  —  the  barque  of  two 
hundred  and  nine  tons  —  into  the  dangers,  so  imminent  to 
a  master,  of  uncomprehended  waters  and  thousands  of 
miles  with,  for  the  most  part,  only  the  sheerest  dead  reck 
oning.  Jeremy  Ammidon  said  finally: 

"  If  it's  done  it's  done.  I  used  to  think  there  were  two 
Ammidons  in  the  firm,  not  to  mention  Gerrit;  but  it  seems 
there's  only  one.  A  man  who  has  never  been  to  sea." 
He  rose  and  marched,  slower  and  more  ponderous  than 
ever  before,  to  the  cupboard  where  he  kept  the  square  bot 
tle  of  Medford  rum ;  there,  with  trembling  hands,  he  poured 
himself  out  a  measure.  He  shut  the  glass  door,  but  stood 
for  an  oppressive  space  with  his  back  to  the  room,  seeing 
what  old  vision  of  struggle  or  accomplishment. 

"  I  suppose  I've  been  a  damned  nuisance  about  the 
countinghouse  for  a  long  time,"  he  pronounced,  turning. 
William  rose.  "  You  made  it,"  he  said;  "  it's  you.  God 
forgive  me  if  I  have  been  impatient  or  forgetful  of  all  we 
owe  you."  There  was  a  stir  of  skirts  in  the  doorway,  and 
Rhoda  entered.  "  Breakfast  — "  she  stopped,  and  with 
a  quick  glance  at  her  husband  and  Gerrit  went  at  once 
to  Jeremy  Ammidon.  "  They've  been  bothering  you 
again,"  she  declared,  and  turned  an  expression  of  bright 
anger  on  the  younger  men.  "  Ah,  how  hard  and  hateful 
and  blind  you  are!  "  she  cried. 

William,  with  a  hopeless  gesture,  walked  from  the  room. 
Gerritt  moved  to  a  window  facing  the  Square;  but  he  saw 

[188] 


JAVA    HEAD 

nothing  of  its  sultry  yellow-green  expanse  —  he  was  re 
membering  how  as  a  child,  his  mother  already  dead,  a 
nurse  had  held  him  up  on  Derby  Wharf  to  see  his  father 
sweep  into  port  from  the  long  voyage  to  the  East.  He 
caught  again  the  resonant  voice,  as  if  sounding  from  a 
hold  of  ribbed  oak,  the  tremendous  vigor  of  the  arm  that 
swept  him  up  to  a  bearded  face.  He  couldn't  bring  him 
self  to  move  now  and  see  an  old  haggard  man  clinging 
with  tremulous  emotion  and  tears  to  the  sympathy,  the 
strength,  of  a  woman. 

Later  in  the  morning,  to  his  immense  relief,  Jeremy  Am- 
midon  regained  a  surprising  amount  of  composure.  At 
first  determined  never  to  return  to  Liberty  Street,  toward 
noon  Gerrit  found  him  in  the  hall  with  his  broad  hat  and 
wanghee.  "  I'll  just  have  a  slant  at  those  specifications," 
he  remarked.  "  Like  as  not  they've  left  off  the  hatch 
coamings."  Gerrit  suggested,  "  Since  it's  so  hot  why  don't 
you  have  the  carriage  round?  "  The  other  voiced  his 
customary  disparagement  of  that  vehicle,  "  If  I  see  that 
I'm  going  to  be  late  for  dinner,"  he  added,  "  I'll  get  one 
of  the  young  men  to  fetch  me  something.  I  don't  want  to 
give  Rhoda  any  trouble." 

Still,  on  the  steps,  he  lingered,  gazing  pridefully  up  at 
the  bulk  of  the  house  he  had  built;  his  eyes  rested  on  the 
brass  plate,  engraved  with  the  words  Java  Head,  on  the 
dignified  white  door.  "A  lot  of  talk  when  I  had  that 
done,"  he  commented;  "  people  said  they'd  never  heard  of 
it,  ought  to  have  my  name  there  for  convenience  if  noth 
ing  else.  They  didn't  know.  It  would  take  a  sailor  for 
that.  Don't  forget  to  tell  Rhoda  not  to  wait  if  I'm  late. 
All  those  girls  of  hers  get  hungry.  I  expect  William 
[189] 


JAVA    HEAD 

consulted  Laurel  about  this  new  move,"  he  ended  with  a 
gleam  of  humor.  "  She's  a  great  hand  for  a  clipper  since 
she  talked  to  Captain  Waterman."  He  was  down  the 
steps,  starting  deliberately  across  the  street.  There  was 
a  last  mutter  of  doubt.  The  bulky  slow  figure  in  yellow 
Chinese  silk  moved  away  and  Gerrit  returned  to  the  shad 
owed  tranquillity  of  the  library. 

More  than  any  other  place  in  the  house  it  bore  the 
impression  of  his  father.  He  wandered  about  the  room, 
lost  in  its  associations,  stopped  in  front  of  the  tall  narrow 
walnut  bookcase  and  took  out  one  of  the  small  company 
of  Jeremy  Ammidon's  logs,  reading  disconnectedly  in  the 
precise  script: 

"  Tuesday,  December  24.  132  days  out.  All  this  day 
gentle  breezes  and  cloudy.  Saw  kelp,  birds,  etc. 

"  Tacked  ship  to  the  eastward  under  short  sail.  At 
daylight  made  all  sail  to  SW.  Gentle  breezes  and  clear 
pleasant  weather.  Saw  huge  shoals  of  flying  fish." 

"  May  19,  11  days  out.  Hainan  in  sight,  bearing  from 
W  by  N  to  NNW.  At  sunset  the  breeze  died  away  and 
hauled  off  the  land.  All  night  light  breezes.  Made 
all  possible  sail  to  the  SSW.  At  the  same  time  set  the 
extremity  of  Hainan  which  bore  NW  by  N  to  N.  Past 
three  Chinese  vessels  steering  NNE.  Saw  much  scum  on 
the  water  and  at  11  A.  M.  lost  sight  of  land." 

"  November  14,  65  days  out.  These  twenty-four  hours 
commences  with  variable  breezes  at  west  and  smooth  sea. 
Saw  brig  steering  to  the  Eastward.  The  land  of  Sumatra 
bearing  SW  by  W  to  SE  by  S.  Tied  rips." 

He  returned  the  log  to  its  resting  place  with  a  quiet 
smile  at  the  last  period.  It  was  all  incredibly  simple  — 

[190] 


JAVA    HEAD 

a  lost  simplicity  of  navigation  and  a  lost  innocent  wonder 
at  the  Mare  Atlanticum  of  old  fable. 

Neither  William  nor  Jeremy  Ammidon  was  present  for 
dinner.  They  were,  Gerrit  concluded,  submerged  in  the 
effort  to  bring  the  changing  activities  of  the  firm  into  the 
latter's  comprehension.  His  foot  was  on  the  stair  leading 
up  to  his  wife,  when  there  was  a  violent  knocking  on  the 
front  door.  It  sounded  with  a  startling  abruptness  in 
the  shut  hall,  and  Gerrit  instinctively  answered  without 
waiting  for  a  servant.  The  flushed  and  breathless  young 
man  before  him  was  evidently  perturbed  by  his  appear 
ance.  He  stammered: 

"  Captain  Ammidon,  you  —  you  must  come  down  to  the 
countinghouse.  At  once,  please!  " 

His  thoughts,  directed  upon  his  father,  gathered  into  a 
chilling  certainty.  "  Captain  Jeremy  is  sick?  "  he  de 
manded  instantly.  The  hesitation  of  the  other  seemed  to 
confirm  an  infinitely  greater  calamity.  "Dead?"  he 
asked  again,  in  a  flooding  misery  of  apprehension.  The 
clerk  nodded: 

"  In  a  second,  like,"  he  continued.  "  All  we  know  they 
were  talking  in  Mr.  William  Ammidon's  room  —  one  of 
the  boys  was  out  that  minute  getting  the  old  gentleman 
some  lunch  —  when  we  heard  a  fall,  it  was  quite  plain, 
and  Mr.  Saltonstone  — " 

"  That  will  do,"  Gerrit  cut  him  short.  He  turned  into 
the  house,  rapidly  considering  what  must  follow.  He'd 
go,  certainly;  but  first  he  must  warn  Rhoda,  she  would 
have  the  girls  to  prepare.  .  .  .  Rhoda  had  always  been 
exceptionally  considerate  and  fond  of  Jeremy  Ammidon. 
He  found  her  at  the  entrance  to  her  room,  and  said,  "  My 
[191] 


JAVA    HEAD 

father  is  dead."     Her  warm  color  sank  and  tears  filled 
her  eyes. 

Hurrying  over  Bath  Street  to  Liberty  his  grief  was  held 
in  check  by  the  pressing  actualities  of  the  moment.  He 
had  time,  however,  to  feel  glad  that  he  had  spent  the 
morning  largely  in  warm  thoughts  of  the  dead  man. 

He  passed  rapidly  into  the  entrance  of  the  establish 
ment  of  Ammidon,  Ammidon  and  Saltonstone.  Im 
mediately  on  the  right  there  was  an  open  railed  enclosure 
of  desks  in  the  center  of  which  a  group  of  clerks  watched 
him  with  mingled  respect  and  curiosity  as  he  continued 
to  the  inner  shut  space.  It  was  a  large  light  room  with 
windows  on  Charter  Street.  William's  expansive  flat- 
topped  desk  with  its  inked  green  baize  was  on  the  left, 
and,  under  a  number  of  framed  sere  ships'  letters  and 
privateersmen's  Bonds  of  the  War  of  1812,  Gerrit  saw 
the  heavy  body  extended  on  a  broad  wooden  bench,  a 
familiar  orange  Bombay  handkerchief  spread  over  the  face. 

Never  in  all  the  memory  of  his  brother  had  William 
Ammidon  been  so  stricken.  As  he  entered  James  Salton 
stone  left  studying  a  list  hastily  scribbled  on  a  half  sheet 
of  the  firm's  writing  paper.  He  nodded  silently  to  Gerrit, 
who  advanced  to  the  covered  face  and  lifted  the  handker 
chief.  There  were  still  traces  of  congestion,  but  a  marble- 
like  pallor  had  taken  the  place  of  the  familiar  ruddy  color. 
Something  of  the  heaviness  of  his  old  age,  the  blurring 
thickness  of  long  inactivity,  had  vanished,  giving  his  still 
countenance  an  expression  of  vigor,  resolution,  contradicted 
by  an  arm  trailing  like  the  loose  end  of  a  heavy  rope  on 
the  floor.  William,  with  a  clenched  hand  on  his  desk, 
spoke  with  difficulty: 

[192] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  You  must  know  this,  Gerrit;  and  then  I'll  ask  you 
never  to  allude  to  it  again.  It  might  be  argued  that  — 
that  James  and  I  killed  him,  but  absolutely  without  in 
tention,  by  accident.  Gerrit,  I  loved  him  more  than  I  took 
time  to  know.  Well,  you  may  or  may  not  have  heard  that 
we  own  two  topsail  schooners  in  the  opium  trade,  between 
India,  Ningpo  and  Amoy,  but  you  do  know  how  father 
detested  anything  to  do  with  the  drug.  We  said  nothing 
to  him  about  this;  it  seemed  necessary,  no  —  permissible. 
But  to-day  when  we  were  coming  to  a  peaceable  under 
standing  about  the  new  contracts  he  stumbled  over  one  of 
the  schooner's  manifests.  Mislaid,  you  see  —  a  clerk ! 
It  swept  him  to  his  feet  in  a  rage,  he  couldn't  speak,  and 
—  and  he  had  walked,  it  was  hot.  .  .  ." 

Gerrit  Ammidon  made  no  answer;  there  was  nothing 
to  be  said.  He  was  shaken  by  a  burning  anger  at  the 
cupidity,  the  ugly  commercial  grasping,  to  which  his 
father  had  been  sacrificed.  A  gulf  opened  between  him 
and  his  brother  and  James  Saltonstone;  he  was  as  dif 
ferent  from  them  as  the  sea  was  from  the  land,  as  the 
wind-swept  deck  of  the  Nautilus  was  from  this  dry  build 
ing  with  its  stifling  papers  and  greed.  He  might  be  in 
the  service  of  the  firm  —  Gerrit  was  not  incorporated  in 
the  partnership  —  he  might  carry  their  cargoes  for  the  mul 
tiplication  of  the  profit,  but  his  essential  service  and  re 
sponsibility,  his  life,  were  addressed  to  another  and  in 
finitely  higher  and  more  difficult  consummation  than  the 
stowed  kegs  of  Spanish  dollars,  the  bills  of  sale.  This 
was  composed  of  the  struggle  with  the  immeasurable 
elements  of  the  seas  and  winds,  the  safety  of  lives,  the 
endless  trying  of  his  endurance  and  will  and  luck. 

[193] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  Now,"  he  spoke  with  a  perceptible  bitterness,  "  you 
can  have  your  way  without  interference,  without  his  mix 
ing  up  your  papers  or  making  the  blunders  of  a  slow  sort 
of  honesty." 

"  I  am  under  no  obligation  to  your  judgment  or  opinion," 
William  replied  stiffly.  "  There  are  always  complications 
you  will  never  penetrate  nor  carry.  At  present  your  as 
sistance  is  more  necessary  than  any  display  of  temper." 

The  funeral  gathered  and  ebbed  in  a  long  procession 
of  carriages  through  a  sultry  noon,  the  services  at  the 
grave  concluded  by  the  symbolic  dropping  of  the  earth 
on  Jeremy  Ammidon's  coffin  lowered  into  the  deep  narrow 
clay  pit.  The  large  varied  throng  lingered  for  a  breath, 
as  if  unable  to  take  their  attention  from  the  raw  opening 
that  had  absorbed  the  shipmaster,  and  then  there  was  a 
determined  and  reassuring  commonplace  murmur,  a  hur 
rying  away  into  the  vital  warmth  of  the  day. 

The  evening  was  the  loveliest  summer  and  the  garden  of 
Java  Head  could  afford:  a  slow  moon  disentangled  itself 
from  the  indigo  foliage  at  the  back  of  the  stable  and 
soared  with  an  increasing  brilliancy,  bathing  the  sod  and 
summerhouse  and  poplars,  the  metallic  box  borders  and 
spiked  flower  beds,  in  a  crystal  clearness.  The  Ammidons 
sat  about  the  willow,  Rhoda  with  a  hand  affectionately  on 
her  husband's  arm,  the  children  —  Laurel  and  Janet  stay 
ing  without  remark  long  past  their  accustomed  hours  for 
bed  —  still  and  white  under  the  blanching  moon.  Gerrit 
intently  studied  his  wife,  Taou  Yuen,  in  a  concentrated 
manner.  She,  too,  was  in  white,  the  Chinese  mark  of 
sorrow. 

Suddenly  in  the  face  of  his  suffering  and  memories 
[194] 


JAVA    HEAD 

she  had  appeared  startlingly  remote,  as  if,  from  standing 
close  beside  him,  she  were  moving  farther  and  farther 
away.  The  image  was  made  profoundly  disconcerting  by 
the  fact  that  they  acted  without  their  own  accord;  it  took 
the  aspect  of  a  purely  arbitrary  phenomenon  over  which 
they  had  no  control.  At  the  same  time  Nettie  Vollar  was 
surprisingly  near,  actual  —  he  could  see  every  line  and 
shading  of  her  vivid  face;  he  felt  the  warm  impact  of  her 
instant  sympathy.  He  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  Barzil 
Dunsack  at  the  funeral;  but  the  other  was  immediately 
hidden  by  the  crowd,  and  Gerrit  had  been  unable  to  dis 
cover  whether  his  son  and  daughter  or  Nettie  had  accom 
panied  him. 

His  thoughts  turned  in  a  score  of  associations  and  ques 
tions  to  Nettie;  but  when  he  found  himself  trying  to  pic 
ture  her  exact  employment  at  the  present  moment  he  was 
angrily  aroused.  He  had,  he  realized,  considered  nothing 
else  for  the  past  hour,  and  his  preoccupation  was  growing 
more  intense,  personal.  He  stirred  abruptly,  and  fixed  his 
mind  on  the  imminent  changes  from  his  father's  death. 
First  the  possibility  would  develop  of  his  becoming  a 
member  of  the  firm;  but  to  this,  he  silently  declared,  he 
would  not  agree.  His  gaze  rested  with  a  faint  underlying 
animosity  on  William,  seated  upright  in  a  somber  absorp 
tion,  and  a  disparagement  of  the  latter's  activities  and 
scale  of  values.  Gerrit  saw  that  there  must  be  a  pacific 
legal  knot  to  untangle;  the  division  of  Jeremy's  estate 
would  require  time  —  he  had  somewhere  heard  that  such 
affairs  often  dragged  on  for  a  year;  and  now  he  was  again 
in  a  fever  of  impatience  to  be  away,  safe,  at  sea.  He 
added  the  more  portentous  word  with  the  vague  self- 
[195] 


JAVA    HEAD 

assurance  that  it  was  only  the  customary  expression  of  his 
notable  ignorance  of  land;  but  it  echoed  with  an  ominous 
special  insistence  in  his  mind. 

The  Nautilus,  he  recalled,  was  once  more  afloat,  re 
paired;  and  a  plan  occurred  to  him  that  seemed  to  dispose 
of  all  his  difficulties,  even  of  the  distasteful  possibility  of 
the  California  clipper  service.  He  could  take  the  ship 
as  part  of  his  inheritance;  and,  though  ostensibly  sailing 
her  in  the  interest  of  the  firm,  make  such  voyages  and 
ports,  carry  such  cargoes,  as  his  independence  dictated. 
The  Nautilus,  with  a  cargo  out  of  tin  and  dyes  and  cotton 
manufactures,  and  forty  or  fifty  thousand  trade  dollars, 
would  represent  a  sum  of  nearly  two  hundred  thousand; 
but  as  a  family  they  were  very  rich;  he'd  have  more  than 
that;  and  bank  the  remainder  intact  to  the  credit  of  his 
wife. 

There  were  many  practical  aspects  of  his  marriage 
that  he  had  not  stopped  to  weigh  in  its  precipitant  con 
summation.  The  problem,  pointed  out  by  Rhoda,  of  his 
absence  from  Taou  Yuen  on  cruise  could  not  be  solved 
with  the  facility  he  had  taken  for  granted.  It  was  as 
impossible  to  leave  her  happily  here  —  he  was  aware  of 
her  growing  impatience  with  Western  habit  —  as  it  would 
be  for  him  to  become  a  contented  part  of  Chinese  home 
life;  and  not  only  was  she  uncomfortably  cramped  and 
sick  on  shipboard,  but  he  doubted  whether  he  could  per 
suade  his  crews  to  sail  with  her.  Superstitious  able  sea 
men  balked  at  the  presence  of  even  a  normal  wife  aft;  and 
a  Chinese  would  be  regarded  as  a  sign  of  certain  disaster. 

He  would  have  to  establish  her  somewhere  in  the  East 
Indies;  and  he  viewed  with  a  new  dislike  all  such  tropical 

[196] 


JAVA    HEAD 

settings.  His  entire  life  threatened  to  become  an  affair  of 
damnable  palm  trees  and  Oriental  stenches.  Gerrit  Am- 
midon  broke  into  a  cold  sweat  at  the  realization  of  the  far 
more  direct  implication  that  had  taken  substance  in  his 
mind.  The  thing  was  going  entirely  too  far!  He  won 
dered  irritably  at  the  obscure  cause  for  such  violent  inner 
agitations. 

Rhoda  Ammidon  with  a  dim  smile  rose,  gathering  her 
daughters  about  her,  and  departed  in  a  pale  cloud  of  mus 
lin.  Taou  Yuen,  with  her  murmuring  formal  politeness, 
moved  away  too,  leaving  the  brothers  together.  What 
ever  sympathetic  intercourse  they  might  otherwise  have  had, 
whatever  shared  memories  of  their  boyhood  and  their 
father,  were  made  impossible  by  William's  admission  of 
the  immediate  cause  of  the  elder's  death. 

"  The  Saltonstones  are  going  into  Boston  this  fall," 
William  said  abruptly.  "  It  is  necessary  for  one  of  us  to 
live  there;  and  Caroline  has  always  had  a  hankering  for 
wider  society.  Rhoda,  I  was  surprised  to  learn,  wishes  to 
remain  here  at  Java  Head  for  a  year  or  so  anyway.  She 
has  a  very  real  affection  for  the  place.  But  I  tell  her 
when  the  girls  are  older  Boston,  or  perhaps  New  York, 
will  give  them  far  greater  opportunities.  Sidsall,  stranger 
still,  was  in  tears  at  the  whole  thing;  she  seemed  ridicu 
lously  upset  about  leaving." 

The  vision  of  Nettie  Vollar  persisted,  bright  and  disturb 
ing.  Once  he  was  at  sea,  Gerrit  told  himself,  on  the  cir 
cumscribed  freedom  of  his  quarter-deck,  he  would  lose  the 
unsettling  fever  burning  at  that  instant  in  his  veins.  But 
the  memory  of  long  solitary  passages  with  nothing  to  dis 
tract  his  mind  through  week  upon  week  after  the  ship 

[197] 


JAVA    HEAD 

took  the  trades,  when  hour  upon  hour  his  thoughts  turned 
inward  on  themselves  and  reviewed  every  past  act  and 
feeling,  made  doubtful  even  that  old  release.  The  trouble 
was  that  he  instinctively  avoided  any  square  facing  of  the 
difficulty  that  had  multiplied  with  such  amazing  rapidity 
—  like  a  banyan  tree  —  about  the  present  and  the  shad 
owed  future.  This  he  was  forced  to  admit,  but  grimly 
added  that  there  could  be  only  one  answer  to  whatever  he 
might  lay  bare  —  the  adherence  to  the  single  fundamental 
duty  of  which  he  never  lost  sight.  No  port  was  gained  by 
changing  blindly  from  course  to  course,  that  way  lay  the 
reefs;  a  man  could  but  keep  steadily  by  the  compass. 
That,  at  least,  was  all  he  could  see,  propose,  for  himself, 
being  rather  limited  and  lacking  the  resources  which  others 
of  greater  knowledge  so  confidently  explored. 

After  breakfast  on  the  following  morning  he  mounted 
the  dignified  staircase,  with  the  sweeping  railing  of  red 
narra  wood  and  high  Palladian  window  at  the  turn,  to  his 
wife.  In  their  room  he  was  bathed  in  a  cold  sweat  of  dis 
may  at  a  sudden  detached  view  of  Taou  Yuen  in  her  com 
plete  Manchu  mourning  for  his  father.  An  unhemmed 
garment  of  coarse  white  hemp  hung  in  ravelings  about 
slippers  of  sackcloth;  what  had  been  an  elaborate  head 
dress  was  hidden  under  a  binding  of  the  bleached  hemp; 
she  wore  no  paint  nor  flowers ;  her  pins  and  earrings  were 
pasted  with  dough,  and  her  expression  was  drugged  with 
the  contemplative  fervor  of  what  had  evidently  been  a  re 
ligious  ceremonial. 

"  For  the  wise  old  man,  for  your  father,"  she  said.  She 
was  exhausted  and  sank  onto  the  day  bed;  but  almost  im 
mediately  her  hand  reached  out  in  the  direction  of  her 

[198] 


JAVA    HEAD 

pipe,  and  she  smiled  faintly  at  him.  He  clenched  his 
sinewy  hands,  the  muscles  of  his  jaw  knotted,  as  he  gazed 
steadily  at  the  woman,  the  Manchu  woman,  he  had  of  his 
own  free  accord  married.  It  sickened  him  that,  for  the 
drawing  of  a  breath,  he  had  regarded  Taou  Yuen  with 
such  appalling  injustice  —  injustice,  the  evil  he  hated  and 
condemned  more  than  any  other.  What,  in  the  name  of 
God,  was  he  made  of  that  he  could  sink  so  low ! 

"We'll  leave  here  soon,"  he  declared  abruptly;  "the 
Nautilus  will  be  ready  for  sea  almost  any  time." 

He  could  recognize,  from  his  slight  knowledge  of  her, 
that  Taou  Yuen  welcomed  the  news.  "  Shanghai  ?  "  she 
asked.  He  nodded.  It  came  over  him  that  he  was  no 
longer  young.  His  father  had  retired  from  the  sea  within 
a  few  years  of  his  own  present  age  and  built  Java  Head, 
the  house  that  was  to  be  a  final  harbor  of  unalloyed  hap 
piness.  No  such  prospect  awaited  him ;  he  had  one  of  the 
premonitions  that  were  more  certain  than  the  most  solid 
realities  —  as  long  as  he  lived  he  must  sail  in  ships,  strug 
gling  with  winds  and  calms,  with  currents  and  cockling 
and  placid  seas.  Well,  that  was  natural,  inevitable,  what 
he  would  have  chosen.  At  the  same  time  he  dwelt,  with  a 
sensation  of  loneliness,  on  the  green  garden  and  drawing- 
room  filled  in  June  with  the  scent  of  lilacs,  on  Rhoda  sur 
rounded  by  her  girls. 

When  the  question  of  the  division  of  Jeremy  Ammi- 
don's  estate  came  up,  he  was,  as  he  had  foreseen,  urged 
to  become  a  partner  of  the  firm ;  and,  when  that  failed,  told 
that  it  was  his  vested  duty  to  continue  in  his  present 
capacity  as  a  shipmaster  in  all  their  interests.  He  was 
seated  with  Saltonstone  and  William  in  the  countinghouse 

[199] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  he  could  tell  from  his  brother's  ill-restrained  impa 
tience  that  the  other  considered  him  hardly  more  than  a 
clumsy-witted,  stubborn  fool  before  the  mast  of  the  facts 
of  actual  life, 

His  gaze,  above  their  heads,  rested  on  the  framed  pass 
of  the  ship  Mocha,  one  of  his  father's  last  commands,  over 
the  bench  where  he  had  lain  dead.  It  was  given  by  the 
President,  James  Monroe,  in  1818,  its  white  paper  seal 
embossed  on  the  stained  parchment.  It  had  an  engraving 
of  a  lighthouse  and  spired  town  on  the  dark  water's  edge, 
and  above,  a  picture  of  a  ship  with  everything  drawing  in 
a  fair  wind,  the  upper  sails  torn  off  on  a  dotted  wavering 
line  for  the  purpose  of  identification  with  its  stub. 

"  No,"  he  told  them  quietly,  "  I'll  go  my  own  way  as  I 
said;  with  the  Nautilus,  if  that  can  be  arranged."  He 
rose  with  a  nod  of  finality,  and  James  Saltonstone  re 
marked,  "  Jeremy  to  the  life."  Gerrit  replied,  "  I'd  not 
ask  anything  better." 

Through  the  evening  he  heard  little  but  the  discussion 
of  Mr.  Folk's  approaching  visit  to  Salem.  The  President 
was  to  leave  the  train  at  the  Beverly  Depot  at  three  P.  M. 
and  be  fetched  with  Secretary  Buchanan  and  Marshal 
Barnes  in  a  barouche  with  six  horses  and  met  at  the  out 
skirts  of  Salem  by  the  city  authorities. 

There  would  be  a  Beverly  cavalcade,  the  city  guard  was 
ordered  to  muster  at  the  armory;  while  an  evening  parade 
at  five  o'clock  and  the  military  ball .  in  Franklin  Hall 
were  to  follow. 

But  when  the  day  and  occasion  actually  arrived  it  was 
spoiled  by  a  succession  of  unforeseen  mishaps.  The  train 
was  late  and  the  presidential  party  in  a  fever  of  haste  — 

[200] 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  procession,  hurrying  through  the  massed  public-school 
children  and  throngs  of  Chestnut  Street,  gave  a  perfunc 
tory  attention  to  the  salutes  and  short  address  of  the  mayor. 
The  President's  reply,  hardly  more  than  a  few  introduc 
tory  phrases,  cut  short,  the  barouche  was  sent  plunging 
over  its  route  with  the  Secretary  crying,  "  Drive  on ! 
Drive  on!  "  and  Marshal  Barnes  swearing  and  expecto 
rating  in  callous  profusion. 

Some  of  the  crowd,  the  Ammidons  heard,  had  been 
knocked  down  and  injured  in  the  pell-mell  of  the  rush. 
Gerrit's  countenance  showed  his  contempt  of  what  he  held 
to  be  a  characteristically  ludicrous  farce.  After  all,  his 
wishes  in  regard  to  the  Nautilus  had  been  easy  of  execu 
tion,  the  ship  was  now  his;  he  was  already  contract 
ing  for  a  cargo.  He  had  been  to  see  Mr.  Broadrick,  his 
first  mate,  and  the  latter  was  assembling  the  chief  members 
of  the  crew.  As  always  at  the  prospect  of  sailing  he  was 
unsettled,  concerned  with  countless  details  of  departure 
—  like  a  vessel  straining  at  her  last  anchor. 

Seated  in  the  library  with  Taou  Yuen  —  he  had  called 
her  aside  from  her  fixed  passage  to  their  room  from  the 
garden  —  he  was  recounting  his  main  plans  for  the  near 
future,  when  he  became  aware  of  an  arrival  on  the  steps 
outside.  He  heard  a  servant's  voice,  and,  immediately 
after,  the  woman  appeared  in  the  doorway;  but  she  was 
forced  aside  by  Edward  Dunsack.  Gerrit's  quick  resent 
ment  flared  at  such  an  unrnannered  intrusion,  and  he 
moved  ungraciously  forward.  The  servant  explained  im- 
potently,  "  I  told  him  I  would  see — " 

"  Yes?  "  Gerrit  Ammidon  demanded. 

Dunsack  bowed  ceremoniously  to  Taou  Yuen,  then  he 
[201] 


JAVA    HEAD 

faced  the  other.  On  the  verge  of  speech  he  hesitated,  as 
if  an  unexpected  development  made  inadequate  whatever 
he  had  been  prepared  to  say;  then,  with  a  sudden  decision, 
he  hurried  into  an  emotional  jumble  of  words.  "  I  can  tell 
you  in  a  breath  —  Nettie  was  badly  hurt  in  that  cursed 
rabble  yesterday.  It  looks  as  if  she  was  actually  struck 
by  one  of  the  horses.  She  was  unconscious,  and  then 
delirious;  now  she  is  in  her  right  mind  but  very  weak; 
and,  since  she  wished  to  see  you,  I  volunteered  to  put  our 
pride  in  my  pocket  and  carry  her  message." 

An  instant  numbing  pain  compressed  Gerrit's  heart;  he 
felt  that,  in  an  involuntary  exclamation,  he  had  clearly 
shown  the  depth  of  his  dismay.  Damn  the  fellow,  why 
had  he  burst  out  in  this  public  indecent  manner!  The 
situation  he  had  plausibly  created,  the  thing  he  managed  to 
insinuate,  was  an  insult  to  them  all  —  to  his  wife,  Taou 
Yuen,  coldly  composed  beyond,  himself  and  to  Nettie.  He 
stood  with  his  level  gaze  fixed  in  an  enraged  perplexity  on 
Edward  Dunsack's  sallow  countenance,  deep  sunk  on  its 
bony  structure,  conscious  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  a 
satisfactory  or  even  coherent  reply. 

"  Something  was  said  about  this  afternoon,"  the  other 
added.  That  period,  Gerrit  realized,  was  nearly  over. 
But  above  every  other  consideration  rose  the  knowledge 
that  he  would  have  to  see  Nettie  Vollar,  badly  injured,  as 
she  desired.  The  common  humanity  of  that  necessity  left 
him  no  choice. 

He  turned  to  Taou  Yuen  with  a  brief  formal  explana 
tion.  A  friend,  their  families  had  been  associated  for 
years,  had  been  hurt  and  sent  for  him.  .  .  .  Return  im- 

[202] 


JAVA    HEAD 

mediately.  He  paused,  in  the  act  of  leaving,  at  the  door 
of  the  library,  waiting  for  Edward  Dunsack  to  join  him; 
but  the  other  had  resolutely  turned  his  back  upon  Gerrit. 
He  showed  no  indication  of  departure.  Gerrit  Ammidon 
was  at  the  point  of  an  exasperated  direction;  but  that,  in 
the  light  of  Dunsack's  purpose  there,  appeared  ridiculously 
abrupt ;  and  confident  of  his  wife's  supreme  ability  to  con 
trol  any  situation  he  continued  without  further  hesitation 
to  the  street,  hurrying  in  a  mounting  anxiety  toward  the 
Dunsacks'. 

Dwelling  on  his  conduct  in  the  library,  at  the  sudden 
announcement  of  Nettie's  accident,  he  felt  that  he  had 
acted  in  a  precipitant  if  not  actually  confused  way.  As  a 
fact,  it  had  all  been  largely  mechanical;  his  oppression, 
his  dread  for  Nettie,  had  made  everything  else  dim  to  see 
and  faint  to  hear.  Dunsack's  grimacing  face,  the  immo 
bile  figure  of  his  wife,  the  familiar  sweep  of  the  room,  had 
been  things  of  no  more  substance  than  a  cloud  between  him 
and  the  only  other  reality  existing.  He  had  no  memory, 
for  instance,  of  having  stopped  to  secure  his  hat,  but  he 
found  it  swinging  characteristically  in  a  hand.  And  now 
even  the  semblance  of  reasonable  speech  and  conduct  he 
had  managed  to  command  vanished  before  a  panic  that  all 
but  forced  him  into  a  run. 

The  main  door  of  Barzil  Dunsack's  house  was  open  on 
the  narrow  somber  region  within;  he  knocked  sharply 
against  the  wood  at  the  side  and  was  immediately  an 
swered  by  the  appearance  of  Kate  Vollar. 

"  This  is  a  great  kindness,  Captain  Ammidon,"  she  told 
him  in  her  negative  voice;  "come  in  here,  please."  He 

[203] 


JAVA    HEAD 

looked  hastily  about  the  formal  space  into  which  she  led 
him,  expecting  to  see  Nettie  prostrate,  but  she  was  not 
there.  "How  is  she?"  he  demanded  impatiently. 

"Nettie?"  her  mother  turned  as  if  surprised  by  an 
unexpected  twist  of  the  situation.  "  Oh,  why  she'll  mend 
all  right,  the  doctor  says;  but  it  will  be  slow.  Her  arm 
had  an  ugly  slithering  break,  and  she  suffers  with  it  all 
the  time."  A  pause  followed,  in  which  she  met  his  in 
terrogation  with  a  growing  mystification.  "  I  suppose 
Edward  told  you,"  she  ventured  finally.  The  sense  of 
being  at  a  loss  was  swiftly  communicated  to  him. 

"  Your  brother  said  Nettie  wanted  to  see  me,"  he  re 
turned  bluntly. 

"Now,  however  could  Edward  do  a  thing  like  that!  " 
she  cried  in  deep  distress.  "  Why,  there's  no  truth  to  it. 
I  asked  him  myself  to  see  if  you'd  kindly  stop  and  give  me 
some  advice.  What  put  it  in  my  head  was  that  once  your 
father  offered  —  he  told  Nettie  to  let  him  know  if  there 
was  anything  to  be  done.  Edward  Dunsack  isn't  just 
right  in  his  head." 

Gerrit  was  filled  with  a  mingling  sense  of  disappoint 
ment,  relief  that  Nettie  was  no  worse,  and  the  uncom 
fortable  conviction  that  he  had  behaved  like  an  hysterical 
fool.  He,  too,  but  angrily,  wondered  why  Dunsack  had 
invented  such  an  apparently  pointless  lie.  Probably  Kate 
Vollar  was  right,  and  her  brother's  wits,  soaked  in  opium, 
had  wandered  into  a  realm  of  insane  fabrications.  He 
composed  himself  —  the  first  feeling  blotting  out  his  other 
emotions  —  to  meet  the  deprecating  interrogation  before 
him. 

[204] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  should  be  glad  to  do  what  I  could  in  my  father's 
place." 

"  In  a  way,"  she  continued,  "  it's  about  Edward.  When 
he  came  back  from  China  and  decided  to  stay  in  Salem 
his  father  turned  all  the  books  over  to  him;  he  was  to 
tend  to  everything  in  the  way  of  accounts  and  shipments; 
and,  he  said,  he  would  make  us  all  rich  in  a  year  or  so. 
But,  instead,  he  has  neglected  the  clerking  until  we  can't 
tell  what's  going  or  coming.  Edward  hasn't  —  hasn't 
quite  been  himself  lately,"  she  paused  and  Gerrit  nodded 
shortly.  "  Now  we're  not  wealthy,  Captain  Ammidon,  we 
never  got  more  than  just  enough  from  our  West  India 
trade;  but  in  the  last  couple  of  months,  with  Edward  like 
he  is  and  father  too  old  for  columns  of  figuring  —  he's 
dreadful  forgetful  now  —  not  a  dollar  was  made.  The 
schooners  are  slow,  behind  the  times  I  guess,  we've  had  to 
scrape;  yet  it's  been  something.  .  .  .  They're  both  awful 
hard  to  do  with,"  she  stopped  hopelessly. 

"  You  must  get  a  reliable  man  in  charge.  Some  one 
who  knows  the  West  India  shipping  should  go  over  your 
entire  property,  decide  what  is  necessary,  then  borrow  the 
money.  We  can  find  that  without  trouble.  I'll  make 
only  one  condition:  That  is  the  complete  restraint  of 
your  brother.  It  is  known  that  he  has  the  opium  habit, 
he  is  a  dangerous  — " 

He  stopped  at  the  echo  of  a  thin  persistent  tapping  from 
above.  "  That's  Nettie,"  Kate  Vollar  said;  "  the  way  she 
calls  me.  I'll  ask  you  to  excuse  me  for  a  minute." 
When  she  returned  her  face  bore  an  unaccustomed  flush. 
"  Nettie  heard  you  in  the  hall  or  through  the  stovepipe." 
She  spoke  doubtfully:  "  She'd  like  to  see  you,  but  I  don't 
[205] 


JAVA    HEAD 

know  if  it  would  be  right  with  her  in  bed.  Still,  I  prom 
ised  I'd  tell  you." 

He  rose  promptly.  The  woman  stood  aside  at  the 
upper  door  and  he  at  once  saw  Nettie  lying  with  her 
vigorous  black  hair  sprawling  in  a  thick  twist  across  the 
pillow.  Her  face  was  pinched,  it  seemed  thin,  and  the 
brilliancy  and  size  of  her  eyes  were  exaggerated.  One 
arm,  clumsy  and  inanimate  in  splints,  was  extended  over 
the  cotton  spread;  but  with  the  other  hand  she  was 
feverishly  busy  with  her  appearance.  She  smiled,  a  wan 
tremulous  movement  that  again  shut  the  pain  like  a  leaden 
casket  about  his  heart. 

"Do  go  away,  mother!  "  Nettie  directed  Kate  Vollar 
hovering  behind  them.  "  Your  fidgeting  will  make  me 
scream."  With  an  incoherent  murmur  she  vanished  from 
the  room.  The  girl  motioned  toward  a  chair,  and  Gerrit 
drew  it  forward  to  a  table  that  bore  water  and  a  small 
glass  bowl  partly  covered  by  a  sheet  of  paper,  holding  a 
number  of  symmetrical  reddish-black  pills.  "  Opium," 
Nettie  told  him,  following  his  gaze;  "  I  cried  dreadfully 
with  the  hurt  at  first.  It's  dear,  and  Edward  made  those 
from  some  he  had.  You  know,  I  watched  him  roll  them 
right  here;  it  was  wonderful  how  quickly  he  did  it,  each 
exactly  alike,  two  grains."  She  told  him  the  circum 
stances  of  her  accident  while  he  sat  with  his  eyes  steadily 
on  her  face,  his  hands  folded. 

He  was  quiet,  without  visible  emotion  or  speech;  but 
there  was  an  utter  tumult,  a  tumult  like  the  spiral  of  a 
hurricane,  within  him.  Rebellious  feelings,  tyrannical  de 
sires  and  thoughts,  swept  through  him  in  waves  of  heat 
and  cold.  Nettie's  voice  grew  weak,  the  shadows  deepened 

[206] 


JAVA    HEAD 

under  her  eyes,  for  a  little  they  closed;  and  but  for  the 
faint  stir  of  the  coverlet  over  her  heart  she  was  so  pallid, 
so  still,  that  she  might  have  been  dead.  Moved  by  an  un 
controllable  fear  he  bent  toward  her  and  touched  her  hand. 
Her  gaze  slowly  widened,  and,  turning  over  her  palm,  she 
weakly  grasped  his  fingers.  A  great  sigh  of  contentment 
fluttered  from  her  dry  lips.  "  Gerrit,"  she  whispered, 
barely  audible.  He  leaned  forward,  blinded  by  his  pas 
sion  for  her. 

He  admitted  this  in  an  honest  self-knowledge  that  he 
had  refused  recognition  until  now.  Tender  and  reassur 
ing  words,  wild  declarations  and  plans  for  the  future, 
crowded  for  expression;  nothing  else  before  the  immensity 
of  desire  that  possessed  him  was  of  the  slightest  concern; 
but  not  a  syllable  was  spoken.  A  sharp  line  was  ploughed 
between  his  brows ;  his  breath  came  in  short  choked  gusts, 
he  was  utterly  the  vessel  of  his  longing,  and  yet  an  ulti 
mate  basic  consideration,  lost  in  the  pounding  of  his  veins, 
still  restrained  him. 

"  I  love  you,  Gerrit,"  Nettie  said;  "  I'll  never  stop  till 
I  die."  Her  face  and  voice  were  almost  tranquil;  she 
seemed  to  speak  from  a  plane  above  the  ordinary  neces 
sities  of  common  existence,  as  if  her  pain,  burning  out  her 
color  and  vigor  and  emotions,  had  given  her  the  privilege 
of  truth.  Curiously  enough  when  it  seemed  to  him  that 
she  had  expressed  what  should  have  sent  him  into  a  single 
consuming  flame  he  grew  at  once  completely  calm.  He, 
too,  for  the  moment,  reached  her  state  of  freedom  from 
earth  and  flesh. 

"  I  love  you,  Nettie,"  he  replied  simply. 

However,  he  speedily  dropped  back  into  the  sphere  of 
[207] 


JAVA    HEAD 

actual  responsibilities.  He  saw  all  the  difficulties  and 
hovering  insidious  shadows  in  which  they  might  be  lost. 
This,  in  turn,  was  pushed  aside  by  the  incredulous  real 
ization  that  Nettie's  life  and  his  had  been  spoiled  by  a 
thing  no  more  important  than  a  momentary  flare  of  temper. 
If,  as  might  have  happened,  he  had  overlooked  Barzil 
Dunsack's  ridiculous  tirade,  if  he  had  turned  into  the 
yard  where  Nettie  was  standing  instead  of  tramping  away 
up  Hardy  Street,  everything  would  have  been  well. 

It  was  unjust,  he  cried  inwardly,  for  such  infinite  con 
sequences  to  proceed  from  unthinking  anger!  A  great  or 
tragic  result  should  spring  from  great  or  tragic  causes,  the 
suffering  and  price  measured  by  the  error.  He  could  see 
that  Nettie  was  patiently  waiting  for  him  to  solve  the 
whole  miserable  problem  of  their  future;  she  had  an  ex 
pression  of  relief  which  seemed  to  take  a  happy  issue  for 
granted.  None  was  possible.  A  baffled  rage  cut  his 
speech  into  quick  brutal  words  flung  like  shot  against  her 
hope. 

"  I  love  you,"  he  repeated,  "  yes.  But  what  can  that 
do  for  us  now  ?  I  had  my  chance  and  I  let  it  go.  To-day 
I'm  married,  I'll  be  married  to-morrow,  probably  till  I 
die.  Perhaps  that  wouldn't  stop  a  man  more  intelligent 
—  it  might  be  just  that  —  than  I  am ;  perhaps  he'd  go  right 
after  his  love  or  happiness  wherever  or  however  it  offered. 
There  are  men,  too,  who  have  the  habit  of  a  number  of 
women.  That  is  understood  to  be  a  custom  with  sailors. 
It  has  never  been  with  me;  as  I  say,  maybe  I  am  too 
stupid. 

"  What  in  the  name  of  all  the  heavens  would  I  do  with 
Taou  Yuen?  "  he  demanded.  "  I  can't  desert  her  here,  in 

[208] 


JAVA    HEAD 

America,  leave  her  with  William.  I  brought  her  thousands 
of  miles  away  from  her  home,  from  all  she  knows  and 
is.  If  I  took  her  back  and  dropped  her  in  China  it  would 
be  murder." 

An  expression  of  unalloyed  dreariness  overspread  Net 
tie's  features.  "  I  wish  I  had  been  killed  right  out,"  she 
said.  The  starkness  of  the  words,  of  the  reality  they 
spoke,  flowed  over  him  like  icy  water;  he  felt  that  he  was 
sinking,  strangling,  in  a  sea  grimmer  than  any  about  Cape 
Horn.  He  was  continually  appalled  by  the  realization 
that  there  was  no  escape,  no  smallest  glimmer,  leading  from 
the  pit  into  which  they  had  stumbled.  He  had  the  sen 
sation  of  wanting  enormously  to  go  with  Nettie  but  was 
fast  in  chains  that  were  locked  on  him  by  a  power  greater 
than  his  will. 

"  It's  no  good,"  his  voice  was  flat. 

"  I  don't  believe  I'll  see  you  again,"  Nettie  articulated; 
"  now  the  Nautilus  is  near  ready  to  sail.  I  can't  stand 
it,"  she  sobbed;  "  that  last  time  you  went  out  the  harbor 
just  about  ended  me,  but  this  is  worse,  worse,  worse,  I'll 
—  I'll  take  all  the  opium." 

"  No,  you  won't,"  he  asserted,  standing,  confident  that 
her  spirit  was  too  normal,  too  vitally  healthy,  for  that. 
His  gaze  wandered  about  the  room:  her  clothes  were 
neatly  piled  and  covered  by  a  skirt  on  a  chair;  the  mirror 
on  her  chest  of  drawers  was  broken,  a  corner  missing; 
there  was  a  total  absence  of  the  delicate  toilet  adjuncts  of 
Rhoda  and  Taou  Yuen  —  only  a  small  paper  of  powder,  a 
comb  and  brush,  and  the  washstand  with  a  couple  of  coarse 
towels.  What  dresses  she  had  were  hung  behind  a 
ridiculously  inadequate  drapery.  She  had  so  little  with 
[209] 


JAVA    HEAD 

which   to   accomplish   what,    for   a   girl,   was   so   much, 

His  emotion  had  retreated,  leaving  him  dull-eyed,  heavy 
of  movement.  The  moment  had  come  for  his  departure. 
Gerrit  stood  by  the  bed.  Nettie  turned  away  from  him, 
her  face  was  buried  in  the  pillow,  the  uppermost  free 
shoulder  shook.  "  Good-by,"  he  said.  There  was  no 
answer  and  he  patiently  repeated  the  short  tragic  phrase. 
Still  there  was  no  sound  from  Nettie.  There  would  be 
none.  Even  the  impulse  to  touch  her  had  died  —  died,  he 
thought,  with  a  great  many  feelings  and  hopes  he  once  had. 
A  fleet  surprise  invaded  him  at  the  absence  of  any  impulse 
now  to  protest  or  indulge  in  wild  passionate  terms;  he 
was  surprised,  too,  at  the  fact  that  he  was  about  to  leave 
Nettie.  The  whole  termination  of  the  affair  was  bathed 
in  an  atmosphere  of  stale  calm,  like  the  air  in  a  ship's  hold. 

Gerrit  Ammidon  gazed  steadily  at  her  averted  head,  at 
the  generous  line  of  her  body  under  the  coverlet;  then, 
neither  hasty  nor  hesitating  in  his  walk,  he  left  the  room. 
Kate  Vollar  met  him  at  the  foot  of  the  stair.  "You  under 
stood,"  she  said,  "  that  I  only  bothered  you  because  your 
father  .  .  .  because  I  was  so  put  on?  " 

"  You  were  quite  right,"  he  replied  in  a  measured 
voice;  "  it  will  all  be  attended  to.  With  the  agreement  I 
mentioned." 

"  How  they'll  take  it  I  don't  know." 

"  In  some  positions,"  he  told  her,  "  certain  persons  are 
without  any  choice.  The  facts  are  too  great  for  them.  I 
said  nothing  to  Nettie  of  Edward  Dunsack's  reason  for  my 
coming,"  he  added  significantly.  Out  in  the  street  he 
stopped,  facing  toward  Java  Head  and  evening;  but,  with 

[210] 


JAVA    HEAD 

a  quiver  of  his  lips,  the  vertical  bitter  line  between  his 
drawn  brows,  he  turned  and  marched  slowly,  his  head 
sunk,  to  where  the  Nautilus  was  berthed. 


[211] 


IX 

SEATED  in  the  library,  placidly  waiting  for  Edward 
Dunsack  to  go,  Taou  Yuen  studied  him  briefly.  A 
long  or  thoughtful  survey  was  unnecessary:  the 
opium  was  rapidly  mastering  him.  That  fact  absorbed 
all  the  rest.  She  had  an  immeasurable  contempt  for  such 
physical  and  moral  weakness;  all  the  three  religions  fused 
in  her  overwhelmingly  condemned  self-indulgence;  her 
philosophy,  the  practical  side  of  Lao-tze's  teaching,  em 
phasized  the  utter  futility  of  surrender  to  the  five  senses. 
At  the  same  time  he  was  the  subject  of  some  interest:  he 
was  an  American  who  had  lived  in  China,  and  not  only  on 
the  fringe  of  the  treaty  ports  —  he  had  penetrated  to  some 
extent  into  the  spirit,  the  life,  of  things  Chinese;  while  she, 
Taou  Yuen,  was  amazingly  married  to  Gerrit  Ammidon, 
was  a  Manchu  here,  in  America. 

Absolutely  immobile,  her  hands  folded  in  her  lap, 
she  considered  these  facts,  each  in  relation  to  the  other: 
there  was  wisdom  hidden  in  them  for  her.  If  Mr.  Dun- 
sack  had  retained  the  ordinary  blustering  Western  com 
mercial  mind,  his  knowledge  of  China  confined  to  the 
tea  houses  and  streets,  he  would  probably  be  prosperous 
and  strong  to-day.  The  wisdom  lay  in  this  —  that  here 
she  must  remain  Manchu,  Chinese;  any  attempt  to  be 
come  a  part  of  this  incomprehensible  country,  any  effort 

[212] 


JAVA    HEAD 

to  involve  herself  in  its  mysterious  acts  or  thought,  would 
be  disastrous.  She  must  remain  calm,  unassertive,  let  the 
eternal  Tao  take  its  way. 

Edward  Dunsack  looked  actually  comic :  he  was  staring 
rudely,  with  a  foolish  air  of  flattery,  and  breathing  in 
labored  gasps  —  like  a  coolie  who  had  run  miles  with  a 
heavy  palanquin.  Then  her  mind,  hardly  reacting  from 
immediate  objects,  returned  to  the  contemplation  of  the 
deeper  significance  of  her  presence  here.  Bent  in  on  it 
self  her  thought  twisted  like  a  moonflower  vine  about  the 
solid  fact  of  Gerrit.  She  realized,  of  course,  that  he 
must  have  had  the  past  of  any  healthy  honorable  man  of 
his  age,  and  that  it  would  have  included  at  least  one 
woman.  However,  when  even  the  present  was  an  almost 
complete  puzzle  his  past  had  been  so  lost  to  her  that 
she  had  not  considered  it  until  now. 

"  You  must  overlook  my  unceremonious  speech,"  Ed 
ward  Dunsack  proceeded  in  creditable  Chinese.  "  It 
was  clumsy,  but  I  was  deeply  affected.  It  is  my  niece,  you 
see,  who  was  hurt,  and  who  has  a  very  sad  history.  Then 
there  are  some  special  circumstances.  I'd  have  to  explain 
a  great  deal  before  you  could  understand  why  she  sent 
for  your  husband  and  why  he  left  so  hurriedly." 

"  There  is  nothing  you  need  tell  me,"  Taou  Yuen  replied 
in  her  slow  careful  English.  "  Manchu  eyes  can  see  as 
well  as  American." 

"  A  thousand  times  better."  He,  too,  returned  to  his 
native  speech.  "  It  is  delightful  to  talk  to  a  truly  civilized 
being.  All  that  would  have  to  be  shouted  at  the  women 
of  Salem  is  unnecessary  now.  You  see  —  you  under 
stand  the  heart  of  a  man." 

[213] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  understand  you,"  she  said  impersonally. 

"  I  wonder  if  you  do,"  he  speculated.  "  You  ought 
to  see  what  —  how  much  —  I  think  of  you.  My  brain 
holds  nothing  else,"  he  declared  in  a  low  intense  voice, 
drawing  nearer  to  her. 

She  had  a  momentary,  purely  feminine  shrinking  from 
his  emaciated  shaking  frame,  the  burning  eyes  in  a  face 
dead  like  a  citron;  then  her  placidity  returned,  the  assur 
ance  that  it  was  all  ordained,  that  his  gestures,  the  pump 
ing  of  his  diseased  heart,  had  no  more  individual  signifi 
cance  than  the  movements  of  a  mechanical  figure  operated 
by  strings,  here  the  strings  of  supreme  Fate.  She  even 
smiled  slightly,  a  smile  not  the  mark  of  approval  or  humor, 
but  an  expression  of  absolute  composure.  It  drove  him 
at  once  into  febrile  excitement. 

"  At  least  I  understand  you,"  he  cried;  "  far  more  than 
you  suppose!  You  can't  impress  me  with  your  air  of 
a  Gautama.  I  know  the  freedom  of  your  country.  It 
doesn't  shock  you  to  realize  that  your  husband  has  gone 
to  see  a  woman  he  loved,  perhaps  loves  still,  and  you 
are  not  disturbed  at  my  speaking  like  this." 

Here,  she  knew,  regarding  him  no  more  than  a  shrilling 
locust,  was  the  center  about  which  for  a  moment  blindly 
her  thoughts  of  Gerrit  and  herself  had  revolved.  His 
past — "a  woman  he  loved."  But  it  didn't  in  the  least 
upset  her  present  peace  of  mind,  her  confidence  in  Gerrit. 
There  was  a  sharp  distinction  between  the  eternal,  the 
divine,  Tao,  that  which  is  and  must  prevail,  and  the  per 
sonal  Tao,  subject  to  rebellion  and  all  the  evil  of  Yin; 
and  she  felt  that  her  husband's  Tao  was  good.  Out  of 
this  she  remarked  negligently: 

[214] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  After  all,  you  are  more  ignorant  of  China  than  I 
thought.  But,  of  course,  you  saw  only  the  common  and 
low  side.  You  have  not  heard  of  the  books  girls  are 
taught  from  — '  The  Sacred  Edict '  and  *  Mirror  of  the 
Heart.'  You  don't  know  even  the  first  rule  of  *  The  Book 
of  Rites,'  '  Let  your  face  and  attitude  be  grave  and 
thoughtful,'  and  the  second,  '  Let  your  steps  be  deliberate 
and  regular.' ':  She  paused,  conveying  by  her  manner 
that  he  was  already  vanishing  and  that  she  was  relieved. 

"  That  would  do  well  enough  if  you  were  a  scholar,  or 
a  bonze,"  he  retorted;  "but  such  innocence  in  a  fash 
ionable  woman  is  a  pretense.  If  you  are  so  pure  how 
can  you  explain  your  gold  and  bracelets  and  pins,  all  the 
marks  of  your  worldly  rank?  Lao-tze  taught,  '  Rich  and 
high  but  proud  brings  about  its  own  misfortune.'  "  He 
was  so  close  to  her  now  that  she  caught  a  faint  sickly 
reek  from  his  body.  It  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  see 
his  identity,  his  reason,  vanish,  replaced  by  madness  in 
his  staring  eyes. 

"  I  worship  you,"  he  murmured. 

"  Opium,"  she  spoke  disdainfully. 

"  Your  own  tobacco  is  drugged,"  he  asserted.  "  But 
that's  not  important.  I  tell  you  I  worship  you,  the  most 
beautiful  person  in  the  world.  These  fools  in  Salem, 
even  your  husband,  can't  realize  one-tenth  of  your  per 
fection;  they  can't  venerate  you  as  I  do.  And  now  that 
Ammidon  has  gone  back  to  the  first,  we  are  free  too." 

"  You  are  a  liar,"  she  said  with  an  unexpected  col 
loquial  ease. 

A  darker  color  stained  his  dry  cheeks.  "  You  saw 
him,"  he  replied.  "  Did  he  get  pale  or  didn't  he?  And 
[215] 


JAVA    HEAD 

did  he  or  not  rush  from  the  room  like  a  man  in  a  fever? 
I  tell  you  it's  no  use  pretending  with  me;  say  what  you 
please  I  know  how  delicate  your  senses  are.  I'll  tell  you 
this  too:  It's  written  in  our  progression  that  we  should 
meet  here,  yes,  and  be  a  great  deal  to  each  other.  It  was 
written  in  the  beginning,  and  we  had  been  drawing  to 
gether  through  a  million  cycles  before  Gerrit  Ammidon 
stumbled  across  you." 

Taou  Yuen  was  surprised  by  a  sudden  conviction  that 
a  part  of  this,  at  least,  was  so.  No  living  thing,  however 
minute,  escaped  from  the  weariness  of  movement,  either 
ending  in  final  and  blessed  suspension  or  condemned  to 
struggle  on  and  on  through  countless  lives  of  torment 
ing  passion.  All  had  this  dignity  of  hope  or  despair; 
all  she  encountered  were  humble,  impressive  or  debased 
in  the  working  of  the  mighty  law.  She  had  been  guilty, 
as  this  American  had  pointed  out,  of  dangerous  and 
wrong  pride,  and  she  accepted  her  lesson  willingly. 
There  was,  however,  an  annoying  conflict  between  Edward 
Dunsack,  the  example,  the  impersonal,  and  Edward  Dun- 
sack  making  violent  profession  of  his  unspeakable  desire 
for  her.  Even  the  word  seemed  to  soil  her;  but  there  was 
no  other.  He  went  recklessly  on,  trying  to  increase  his 
advantage : 

"  We're  made  to  be  together." 

"  If  we  are  it  is  because  of  some  great  wickedness  of 
mine.  If  we  are,  then  perhaps  I  am  lost.  But  it  is 
allowed  to  resist  evil,  at  least,  as  far  as  staying  out  of 
its  touch  is  resistance." 

"Nothing  can  keep  you  from  me,"  he  declared.  An 
other  short  step  and  his  knees  would  be  brushing  her 

[216] 


JAVA    HEAD 

gown.  A  stronger  wave  of  dislike,  shrinking,  anger, 
drowned  her  logical  and  higher  resignation.  "  It  is  time 
for  you  to  go,"  she  said,  her  voice  still  even. 

"  Never." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  she  could  feel  his  hot  quivering 
touch  and,  all  her  philosophy  dropping  from  her,  she 
rose  quickly.  "  If  this  were  China,"  she  told  him,  in  a 
cold  fury,  "  you'd  be  cut  up  with  knives,  in  the  courtyard 
where  I  could  look  on.  But  even  here  I  can  ring  for  a 
servant;  and  when  Captain  Ammidon  comes  back  he'll 
know  what  to  say  to  you." 

She  could  see  that  the  last  affected  him;  he  hesitated, 
drew  back,  his  hanging  fingers  clasping  and  unclasping. 
That,  she  thought,  relieved,  would  dispose  of  him.  Then 
it  was  clear  that  his  insanity  persisted  even  in  the  face  of 
the  considerable  threat  of  Gerrit's  hot  pride  and  violent 
tempers. 

"  It's  our  destiny,"  he  repeated  firmly  in  his  borrowed 
faith,  at  once  a  little  terrifying  and  a  little  ridiculous  in 
the  alien  mold.  His  lips  twitched  and  his  bony  forehead 
glistened  in  a  fine  sweat.  Now,  thoroughly  roused,  she 
laughed  at  him  in  open  contempt. 

"Diseased,"  she  cried,  "take  your  sores  away!  Dog 
licked  by  dogs.  Bowl  of  filth,"  she  was  speaking  in 
Chinese,  in  words  of  one  syllable  like  the  biting  of  a 
hair  whip.  Edward  Dunsack  gasped,  as  if  actual  blows 
cut  him;  he  stood  with  one  hand  half  raised,  appalled  at 
the  sudden  vicious  rush  of  her  anger.  A  leaden  pallor 
took  the  place  of  his  normal  sallow  coloring,  and  it  was 
evident  that  he  had  difficulty  in  withstanding  the  pressure 
of  his  laboring  heart.  He  stood  between  her  and  the 

[217] 


JAVA    HEAD 

door  and  she  had  a  premonition  that  it  would  be  useless 
to  attempt  to  avoid  him  or  escape.  She  could,  however, 
call,  and  some  one,  there  were  a  score  of  people  about 
the  house,  must  certainly  appear.  At  that  moment  she 
saw  a  deep  change  sweep  over  his  countenance,  taking 
place  in  his  every  fiber.  There  was  an  inner  wrenching  of 
Edward  Dunsack's  being,  a  blurring  and  infusion  of 
blood  in  his  eyes,  a  breath  longer  and  more  agonized 
than  any  before,  and  she  was  looking  closely  into  the 
face  of  an  overwhelming  hatred. 

For  a  moment,  she  realized,  he  had  even  considered 
killing  her  with  his  flickering  hands.  Then  that  im 
pulse  subsided  before  a  sidelong  expression  of  cunning. 
"  With  all  your  Manchu  attitudes,"  he  mocked  her,  "  yes, 
your  aristocratic  pretense  of  mourning  and  marks  of 
rank,  you  are  no  different  from  the  little  pleasure  girls. 
Your  vocabulary  and  mind  are  the  same.  I  was  a  fool 
for  a  while;  I  saw  nothing  but  your  satins  and  painted 
face.  I  forgot  you  were  yellow,  I  had  forgotten  that  all 
China's  yellow.  It's  yellow,  yellow,  yellow  and  never 
can  be  white.  I  shut  my  eyes  to  it  and  it  dragged  me 
down  into  its  slime."  His  voice  was  hysterical  with  an 
agony  of  rending  spiritual  torment  and  hopeless  grief. 
"  It  poisoned  me  little  by  little,  with  the  smell  of  its 
rivers  and  the  cursed  smell  of  its  pleasures.  Then  the 
opium.  A  year  after  I  had  lost  my  position,  everything; 
and  when  I  came  over  here  it  followed  me  ...  in  my 
own  blood.  Even  then  I  might  have  broken  away,  I 
almost  had,  when  Gerrit  Ammidon  brought  you  to  Salem. 
You  came  at  a  time  when  I  was  fighting  hardest  to 

[218] 


JAVA    HEAD 

throw  it  all  off.  You  see  —  you  fascinated  me.  You 
were  all  that  was  most  alluring  of  China,  and  I  wanted 
you  so  badly,  it  all  came  back  so,  that  I  went  to  the 
opium  to  find  you." 

"  Progression,"  she  said  ironically. 

"Perhaps,"  he  muttered.  "Who  knows?  I'm  fin 
ished  for  this  life  anyhow.  You  did  that.  I  can't  even 
keep  the  books  for  my  father's  penny  trade." 

His  hands  crept  rigidly  toward  her.  If  they  touched 
her  she  would  be  degraded  for  ever.  Yet  she  was  in 
capable  of  flight,  her  throat  refused  the  cry  which  she  had 
been  debating;  alternate  waves  of  revulsion  and  stoical 
resignation  passed  over  her  with  chills  of  acute  terror. 
Yet  she  managed  to  preserve  an  unstirred  exterior;  and 
that,  she  observed,  began  to  influence  him.  His  loathing 
was  as  great  as  ever;  but  his  vision,  that  had  been  fixed 
in  a  blaze  of  fury,  broke,  avoided  her  direct  scrutiny,  her 
appearance  of  statue-like  unconcern. 

There  was  a  sound  of  quick  light  feet  in  the  hall,  the 
bright  voice  of  one  of  Gerrit's  nieces.  Edward  Dunsack 
fell  into  a  profound  abstraction:  he  turned  and  walked 
away  from  her,  standing  with  his  back  to  the  room  at  a 
window  that  opened  upon  the  broad  green  park.  He  was 
so  weak  that  he  was  forced  to  support  himself  with  a 
hand  on  the  wall. 

Taou  Yuen  was  motionless  for  a  perceptible  space,  and 
then  moved  toward  the  door  in  a  dignified  composure. 
All  this  had  come  from  the  utter  impropriety  of  the  life 
in  America.  Dunsack  glanced  at  her  as  she  withdrew,  and 
for  a  moment  she  saw  his  fine  profile  sharp  and  dark 
[219] 


JAVA    HEAD 

against  the  light-flooded  window.  His  lips  stirred  but 
she  heard  no  sound.  Then  she  was  on  the  stair  mount 
ing  to  her  room. 

There  mechanically  she  filled  her  pipe;  but  doing 
this  she  noticed  that  her  hands  were  trembling.  How 
lamentably  she  had  failed  in  the  preservation,  the  as 
sertion,  of  her  superiority,  not  as  a  Manchu,  but  in 
the  deeper,  the  only  true  sense  of  the  word  —  in  sub 
mission. 

"  Requite  hatred  with  virtue." 

She  spoke  Lao-tze's  admonition  aloud  and,  in  the 
customary  devious  channel  of  her  mental  processes,  her 
thoughts  returned  to  her  early  life,  her  girlhood,  so  marred 
by  sickness  that  the  Emperor  had  surrendered  his  cus 
tomary  proprietary  right  in  the  daughters  of  Manchu 
nobles. 

Surrounding  the  fact  of  her  early  suffering,  which  had 
kept  her  out  of  the  active  gayety  of  brothers  and  sisters, 
she  remembered  in  the  clearest  detail  her  father's  house 
in  the  north;  the  later  residences  in  Canton  and  Shanghai, 
even  the  delightful  river  gardens  of  the  summer  place  at 
Soochow,  were  less  vivid.  Inside  the  massive  tiled  stone 
wall  the  rooms  —  there  were  a  hundred  at  least  —  faced 
in  squares  on  the  inner  courtyard,  and  were  connected 
by  glass  enclosed  verandas.  The  reception  houses  of 
the  front  court,  the  deeply  carved  wooden  platform  with 
its  scarlet  covering,  were  of  the  greatest  elegance ;  they  were 
always  astir  with  the  numerous  secretaries,  the  Chinese 
writers  and  messengers,  the  mafoos  and  chair  coolies,  the 
servants  and  blind  musicians  with  the  old  songs,  The 
Millet's  in  Flower  and  Kuan  Kuan  Go  to  the  Ospreys. 

[220] 


JAVA    HEAD 

The  side  door  to  the  women's  apartments,  however, 
opened  into  a  retreat,  where  her  father's  concubine,  he 
had  but  one,  trailed  like  a  bird  of  paradise,  and  there 
was  the  constant  musical  drip  of  a  fountain  in  an  old 
granite  basin.  There,  during  the  years  when  she  was 
lame,  Taou  Yuen  mostly  stayed. 

She  had  been  dropped  from  a  palanquin  in  her  sixth 
year;  sharp  pains  soon  after  burned  in  her  hip,  and 
the  corresponding  leg  had  perceptibly  shortened.  A 
great  many  remedies  were  tried  in  vain  —  burning  with 
charcoal,  the  application  of  black  plasters,  sweating, 
acupuncture  —  sticking  long  needles  into  the  afflicted 
part.  The  doctors  declared  that  the  five  elements  of 
her  body  —  the  metal,  wood,  water,  fire  and  earth,  were 
hopelessly  out  of  equilibrium.  Her  mother  had  then 
called  necromancers  and  devil  charmers;  lucky  and  un 
lucky  days  were  explored;  strange  rites  were  conducted 
before  her  terrified  eyes  screwed  into  the  determination 
to  show  no  alarm. 

A  year,  perhaps,  after  they  had  become  resigned  to  her 
injury,  her  father,  always  a  man  of  the  most  liberal  ideas, 
had  suddenly  brought  into  the  garden  to  see  her  an  Eng 
lish  doctor  passing  through  China.  Against  the  wailing 
protests  of  the  women  the  Englishman  had  been  given 
authority  to  treat  her;  and  he  had  caused  to  be  made  a 
thin  steel  brace,  clasping  Taou  Yuen's  waist  and  extend 
ing  in  a  rigid  band  down  the  length  of  her  injured  leg. 
After  putting  a  high  shoe  on  her  other  foot  he  had  com 
manded  them  to  keep  the  brace  on  her  for  two  years. 

It  was  through  that  period  of  comparative  inactivity 
that  she  acquired  a  habit  of  reading  and  thought,  a  certain 

[221] 


JAVA    HEAD 

grasp  of  philosophical  attitude,  common  to  the  higher 
masculine  Chinese  mind  but  rare  among  their  women. 
She  had,  for  instance,  later,  read  Lao-tze's  Tao-teh-king, 
and  been  impressed  by  his  tranquil  elevation  above  the 
petty  ills  and  concerns  of  life  and  the  flesh.  Her  father, 
like  all  the  ruling  class,  regarded  Taoism  —  which  had, 
indeed,  degenerated  into  a  mass  of  nonsense  about  the 
transmutation  of  base  metals  into  gold  and  the  elixir  of 
life  —  with  contempt.  But  this  seemed  to  her  no  de 
preciation  of  the  Greatly  Eminent  One  or  his  philosophy 
of  the  two^Taoes. 

The  household,  or  at  least  the  family,  worshipped  in 
the  form  of  Confucius;  his  precepts  and  admonitions,  the 
sacred  hiao  or  filial  submission,  the  tablets  and  ancestral 
piety,  were  a  part  of  her  blood;  as  was  the  infinitely 
fainter  infusion  of  Buddhism;  yet  in  her  intellectual 
brooding  it  was  to  the  Tao-teh-king  that  she  returned. 
She  paused  to  recall  that,  the  brace  at  last  removed,  she 
was  practically  completely  recovered;  but  the  bent,  the 
bracing,  given  her  mind  had  remained. 

The  colorful  pageant  of  her  first  marriage,  the  smaller 
but  splendidly  appointed  house  of  her  husband  —  he  was 
extremely  intelligent  and  had  honorably  passed  the  ex 
amination  for  licentiate,  one  of  only  two  hundred  success 
ful  bachelors  out  of  twenty  thousand  —  and  the  period 
following  his  accidental  drowning  wheeled  quickly  through 
her  brain.  .  .  . 

Only  Gerrit  Ammidon  was  left. 

She  loved  him,  Taou  Yuen  realized,  for  a  quality  en 
tirely  independent  of  race:  he  had  more  than  anyone 
else  she  knew  the  virtues  of  simplicity  and  purity  an- 

[222] 


JAVA    HEAD 

nounced  by  Chwang-Tze  as  the  marks  of  the  True  Man. 
"We  must  become  like  little  children,"  the  Old  Master 
had  written.  She  had  seen  this  at  once  in  the  amazing 
interview  sanctioned  by  her  father-in-law.  Most  women 
of  her  class,  even  widows,  would  have  perished  with 
shame  at  being  exposed  to  a  foreigner.  But  Lu  Kik- 
wang  had  expressed  her  difference  from  them  in  the 
terms  of  his  proposal.  His  words  had  been  "  finely  bet 
ter  "  although  the  truth  was  that  her  curiosity  had  al 
ways  mastered  the  other  and  more  prudent  instincts.  Yet 
that  alone  would  not  have  prostrated  her  before  Gerrit 
Ammidon  —  death  was  not  unthinkable  —  nor  carried  her 
into  his  strange  terrifying  ship  and  stranger  life.  The 
love  had  been  born  almost  simultaneously  with  her  first 
recognition  of  his  character.  Now  her  passion  for  him 
was  close  and  jealous.  A  constant  shifting  between  such 
humanity  and  the  calm  detachment  which  prefigured  heaven 
was  what  most  convinced  her  of  the  truths  of  Lao-tze. 

All  this  took  body  at  the  announcement  of  Edward 
Dunsack  about  Gerrit  and  his  niece.  Certainly  he  might 
have  had  an  affair;  that  she  dismissed;  but  the  insinuated 
permanence  of  this  other  affection  was  serious.  She  would 
not  have  believed  Mr.  Dunsack  for  an  instant,  but,  as  he 
had  pointed  out,  Gerrit  had  undoubtedly  been  upset;  he 
had  turned  pale  and  hurried  away  impolitely.  It  was  by 
such  apparently  slight  indications  that  the  great  inner 
currents  of  life  were  discovered.  The  fact  that  Chinese 
officials  had  more  than  one  wife,  or,  to  speak  correctly, 
concubines  in  addition,  had  no  bearing  with  Gerrit;  such 
was  not  the  custom  with  American  men.  It  represented 
for  him,  yes  —  dishonor. 

[223] 


JAVA    HEAD 

She  laboriously  recalled  his  every  attitude  since  they 
had  landed  in  America,  and  was  obliged  to  admit  that 
he  had  changed  —  he  was  less  gay  and  though  his  man 
ner  was  always  considerate  she  recognized  a  growing  im 
patience  beneath  his  darker  calm.  Her  philosophy  was 
again  torn  in  shreds  by  sharp  feminine  emotions.  She 
was  filled  with  jealousy  and  hatred  and  hurt  pride.  The 
clearest  expression  of  his  possible  discontent  had  marked 
his  face  when  he  had  suddenly  come  into  their  room  and 
saw  her  rising  from  a  prayer  for  his  father.  Gerrit's 
lips  had  been  compressed,  almost  disdainful;  at  that 
moment,  she  knew  unerringly,  he  found  her  ugly.  Of 
course  it  had  been  the  hideous  garments  of  mourning. 

She  must  wear  the  unhemmed  sackcloth  and  dull  slip 
pers,  bind  her  headdress  and  cover  her  pins  with  paste, 
for  a  hundred  days ;  and  then  a  second  mourning  of  black 
or  dark  blue,  and  no  flowers,  for  three  years.  It  might 
well  be  that  by  then  Gerrit,  blind  to  these  proprieties, 
would  find  her  unendurable.  Suddenly,  in  the  tremen 
dous  difficulty  of  holding  him  against  an  entire  world, 
his  own  and  of  which  she  was  supremely  ignorant,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  needed  every  possible  means, 
every  coral  blossom  and  gold  filament  and  finger  of 
paint,  the  cunning  intoxication  of  subtle  dress  and  color 
and  perfume.  With  a  leaden  sense  of  guilt,  but  in  a 
fever  of  impatience,  of  haste,  she  stripped  off  the  coarse 
hemp  for  her  most  elaborate  satins,  her  santal  and  cloves 
and  carmine. 

When  Gerrit  came  in  it  had  grown  dark  with  night, 
and  he  explained  that  he  had  been  busy  inspecting 
the  Nautilus'  spars.  She  lighted  a  lamp,  then  another,  all 

[224] 


JAVA    HEAD 

she  could  find,  and  studied  him  unobtrusively.  She  was 
shocked  at  the  worn  expression  of  his  face;  it  seemed 
as  if  he  had  aged  in  the  few  hours  since  he  had  left  the 
library.  He  was  uneasy,  silent;  and,  secretly  dismayed, 
she  saw  that  he  was  indifferent  to  her  changed  appear 
ance,  too.  Taou  Yuen  debated  the  wisdom  of  telling  him 
about  the  painful  scene  with  Edward  Dunsack;  against  her 
original  intent  she  decided  in  the  negative.  She  in 
formed  herself  that  the  reason  for  this  was  a  wish  to 
preserve  him,  now  that  they  were  practically  at  the  day 
of  departure,  from  an  unpleasant  duty.  But  there  was 
an  underlying  dimly  apprehended  and  far  different  mo 
tive:  she  was  afraid  that  it  would  blow  into  flame  a 
situation  that  might  otherwise  be  avoided,  bring  to  life  a 
past  naturally  dying  or  dead. 

She  saw  that  he  was  scarcely  aware  of  her  presence  in 
the  room,  perhaps  in  his  life.  A  period  of  resentment 
followed.  "  You  are  dull,"  she  declared,  "  and  I  am 
going  down  to  the  garden  for  entertainment."  Gerrit 
nodded.  He  would,  he  told  her,  be  along  shortly.  Be 
low  she  found  Roger  Brevard,  with  the  oldest  Ammidon 
girl  and  her  mother. 

Roger  Brevard,  she  had  discovered,  was  in  love  with 
Sidsall.  The  latter,  it  developed,  was  to  leave  shortly 
for  a  party;  Mr.  Brevard  was  not  going;  and,  when 
Gerrit's  sister-in-law  walked  across  the  grass  with  her 
daughter  the  man  dropped  into  an  easy  conversation  with 
Taou  Yuen.  She  had  a  feeling,  which  she  had  tried  in 
vain  to  lose,  of  the  vulgarity,  the  impropriety  of  this. 
Yet  she  recognized  that  there  was  none  of  the  former  in 
Roger  Brevard;  he  resembled  quite  a  little  her  dead 
[225] 


JAVA    HEAD 

husband,  Sie-Ngan-kwan ;  and  for  that  reason  she  was 
more  at  ease  with  him  —  in  spite  of  such  unaccustomed 
familiarity  —  than  with  anyone  else  in  Salem  but  Gerrit. 

He  was,  she  admitted  condescendingly,  almost  as  cul 
tivated  as  the  ordinary  Chinese  gentleman.  Many  of  his 
thoughts,  where  she  could  understand  their  expression, 
might  have  come  from  a  study  of  the  sacred  kings.  At 
the  same  time  her  feminine  perception  realized  that  he 
had  a  genuine  liking  for  her. 

"  You'll  be  delighted  to  leave  Salem,"  he  said,  leaning 
forward  and  studying  her. 

"  That  would  not  be  polite,"  she  answered  formally. 
"  You  have  been  so  good.  But  it  will  give  me  pleasure  to 
see  Shanghai  again.  Anyone  is  happier  with  customs  he 
understands." 

"  And  prefers,"  he  added.  "  Indeed,  I'd  choose  some 
of  your  manners  rather  than  ours.  You  see,  you  have 
been  at  the  business  of  civilization  so  much  longer  than 
the  rest  of  us." 

"  Our  history  begins  two  thousand  years  before  your 
Christ,"  she  told  him;  "our  language  has  been  spoken 
without  change  for  thirty-three  centuries,  as  you  call 
them.  But  such  facts  are  nothing.  I  would  rather  hear 
your  non  —  nonsense,"  she  stumbled  over  the  word. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  what  we  call  nonsense  is  really 
the  most  important?  " 

"  Perhaps,"  she  replied.  "  Devotion  to  the  old  and 
dead  is  greatly  necessary  yet  you  smile  at  it.  I  didn't 
mean  that,  but  moons  and  lovers  and  music."  He  cried  in 
protest,  "  We're  terribly  serious  about  those!  " 

[226] 


JAVA    HEAD 

"  I  hear  nothing  but  talk  about  cargoes  and  sales  and 
money." 

"  We  keep  the  other  under  our  hats,"  he  instructed 
her.  She  was  completely  mystified,  and  he  explained. 

"  In  China,"  she  remarked  tentatively,  "  it  is  possible 
for  a  man  to  love  two  women  at  once,  maybe  one  a  little 
more  than  the  other,  but  he  can  be  kind  and  just  and 
affectionate  to  them  both.  Tell  me,  is  —  is  that  possible 
with  an  American  ?  " 

"  No!  "  he  spoke  emphatically.  "  We  can  love,  in  the 
way  you  mean,  only  one,  perhaps  only  once.  I  wouldn't 
swear  to  that,  but  there  are  simply  no  exceptions  to  the 
first.  Men  are  unfaithful,  yes;  but  at  a  cost  to  them 
selves,  or  because  they  are  incapable  of  restraint.  To  be 
unfaithful  in  anything  is  to  fail,  isn't  it?  You  can  lie  to 
yourself  as  effectively  as  to  anybody  else." 

She  fixed  a  painful  attention  upon  him,  but  lost  at 
least  a  half  of  his  meaning.  However,  one  fact  was 
clearer  than  ever  —  that  Edward  Dunsack  had  said  an 
evil  thing  about  her  husband.  "  It  seems,"  he  went  on, 
"  that  even  spiritual  concerns  can  be  the  result  of  long 
custom."  If  he  was  trying  to  find  an  excuse  for  Chi 
nese  habit  she  immediately  disposed  of  it.  "  No,"  she 
said,  "  you  are  upside  down.  The  spirit  is  first,  the 
eternal  Tao,  everywhere  alike,  but  the  personal  spirit  is 
different  in  you  and  in  us." 

A  sudden  dejection  seized  her  —  now  the  difference 
seemed  vaster  than  anything  she  had  in  common  with  Ger- 
rit.  A  wave  of  oppressive  nostalgia,  of  confusion  and 
dread,  submerged  her  in  a  faintly  thunderous  darkness. 

[227] 


JAVA    HEAD 

She  felt  everywhere  about  her  the  presence  of  evil  and 
threatening  shades.  The  approach  of  her  husband,  his 
heavy  settling  into  a  chair,  did  nothing  to  lighten  her  ap 
prehension. 

"  How  soon  do  we  go?  "  she  asked  faintly. 

"  In  two  weeks,  with  nothing  unexpected,"  he  responded 
without  interest  or  pleasure.  It  flashed  through  her  mind 
that  he  was  depressed  at  leaving  Salem,  that  other  woman. 
His  present  indifference  was  very  far  from  the  manner 
in  which  he  had  first  discussed  their  leaving.  Yet,  even 
that,  she  recalled  in  the  light  of  her  present  sensitive 
ness,  had  been  unnaturally  abrupt  and  clothed  in  a 
great  many  loud-sounding  words.  She  told  herself  arbi 
trarily  that  Edward  Dunsack  had  lied  —  for  the  purpose 
which  his  conduct  afterward  made  clear  —  but  her  very 
feeling  was  proof  that  she  believed  he  had  spoken  the 
truth. 

She  was  a  victim  of  an  uneasy  curiosity  to  see  .  .  . 
she  made  a  violent  mental  effort  and  recaptured  the  name 
—  Nettie  Vollar.  Of  course  the  latter  had  been  the  de 
liberate  cause  of  whatever  wickedness  had  threatened  at 
the  return  of  Gerrit  with  her,  Taou  Yuen.  She  had  how 
ever  no  doubt  of  the  extent  of  this:  Gerrit  was  upright, 
faithful  to  the  necessity  Roger  Brevard  had  explained;  all 
that  assaulted  her  happiness  was  on  an  incorporate  plane, 
or,  anyhow,  in  a  procession  of  consequences  extending 
far  back  and  forward  of  their  present  lives. 

But,  she  recognized,  she  had  no  excuse  nor  opportunity 
to  see  Nettie  Vollar.  Mrs.  Ammidon,  when  she  heard 
of  the  accident,  had  at  once  declared  her  intention  of 
going  to  the  Dunsacks'  house;  still  that  promised  no 

[228] 


JAVA    HEAD 

chance  of  satisfying  her  own  desire.  The  least  politeness 
in  the  world  prohibited  her  from  going  baldly  in  and 
demanding  to  see  the  woman.  She  couldn't,  all  at  once, 
make  convincing  a  sympathy  or  impersonal  interest  en 
tirely  contradictory  to  her  insistent  indifference.  The 
best  she  could  hope  was  for  them  to  sail  away  as  quickly 
as  possible;  when  on  the  other  side  of  the  seas  Gerrit 
would  probably  return  to  the  simplicity  of  being  she 
had  adored. 

Then  a  trivial  and  yet  serious  fear  occurred  to  her  — 
perhaps  here,  among  all  these  dead- white  women,  he  no 
longer  held  her  beautiful.  The  word  was  his  own,  or 
it  had  been  his;  he  had  not  repeated  it,  she  realized,  twice 
since  they  had  been  in  Salem.  Personally,  she  found  the 
American  women  entirely  undistinguished  and  dressed 
in  grotesquely  ugly  and  cheap  clothes  —  not  unlike  paper 
lanterns  bobbing  along  the  ground.  Their  faces  were 
shamelessly  bare  of  paint  and  their  manners  would  have 
disgraced  the  lowest  servant  in  a  Chinese  courtyard. 
This  was  natural,  from  any  consideration  of  the  hideous  or 
inappropriate  things  that  surrounded  them,  and  from  the 
complete  lack  of  what  she  could  distinguish  as  either  dis 
cipline  or  reverence.  Yet  Gerrit,  a  part  of  this,  would  be 
unable  to  share  her  attitude;  she  had  heard  him  praise 
the  appearance  of  women  so  insipid  that  she  had  turned 
expecting  vainly  an  ironic  smile. 

Roger  Brevard  rose  and  made  his  bow,  the  only  satisfac 
tory  approach  to  a  courteous  gesture  she  had  met  outside 
Gerrit's  occasional  half-humorous  effort  since  leaving 
Shanghai.  He  stirred,  muttered  a  perfunctory  phrase,  and 
sank  back  into  obscurity. 

[229] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Little  quirks  of  unfamiliar  disturbing  feeling  ran 
through  Taou  Yuen;  her  mind,  it  seemed,  had  become  a 
thing  of  no  importance;  all  that  at  one  time  had  so 
largely  ordered  her  life  was  superseded  by  these  illogical 
emotions  spreading  apparently  from  her  heart.  The 
truth  was,  she  told  herself,  that  —  with  all  her  reading 
and  philosophy  —  she  had  had  little  or  no  experience  of 
actuality:  the  injury  to  her  hip  and  quiet  life  in  the  gray 
garden  at  Canton,  her  protected  existence  in  the  women's 
apartments,  whatever  she  might  have  learned  from  them 
neglected  because  of  the  general  silliness  of  their  chat 
ter,  the  formal  early  marriage,  had  all  combined  for  the 
preservation  of  her  ignorance. 

She  regarded  herself  now  with  distrust;  nothing  could 
have  been  more  unpleasant  than  the  failure  of  her  will, 
this  swamping  of  her  equanimity.  She  never  lost  for  a 
moment  the  image  of  superiority  that  should  be  her  per 
fect  example,  the  non-assertion  that  was  the  way  of  heaven ; 
but  her  comprehension  was  like  a  figure  ruthlessly  dragged 
about  by  an  overpowering  unreflective  force.  A  sharp 
hatred  of  Nettie  Vollar  seared  her  mind  and  perished 
in  a  miserable  sense  of  weakness. 

Against  the  dark,  charged  with  a  confusion  of  the  ten 
thousand  things,  she  stared  wearily  and  wakeful.  She 
reminded  herself  again  that  Gerrit  would  soon  be  gone 
from  Salem,  alone  with  her  on  the  long  voyage  to  China; 
but  he'd  return  to  America,  come  back  to  Salem;  and 
she  knew  that  he  would  never  bring  her  westward  again. 
A  period  of  depression  followed  which  seemed  to  have 
no  immediate  connection  with  Gerrit;  she  had  an  in 
definable  feeling  of  struggling  in  vain  against  adversity, 
of  opposition  to  an  implacable  power. 

[230] 


JAVA    HEAD 

For  a  short  while  after  she  rose  in  the  morning  it  ap 
peared  that  she  had  regained  her  self-control,  her  reason; 
and  a  consequent  happy  relief  irradiated  her.  But  when 
Gerrit  came  up  after  she  had  finished  her  toilet  and  she 
saw,  from  his  haggard  face,  that  he  too  must  have  been 
awake,  tormented,  through  the  night,  a  passion  of  bit 
terness  enveloped  her  at  which  all  that  had  gone  before 
turned  pale.  She  could  scarcely  restrain  herself  from  a 
noisy  wailing  accusation,  and  stood  regarding  him  with 
a  tense  unnatural  grimace,  the  result  of  her  effort  to 
preserve  propriety.  She  told  herself,  at  the  tempest  of 
vulgar  phrases  storming  through  her  consciousness,  that 
what  Edward  Dunsack  had  said  about  her  being  no  bet 
ter  than  the  tea  house  girls  was  true,  and  she  was  aghast 
at  the  inner  treachery  capable  of  such  self-betrayal.  Not 
a  quivering  word,  however,  escaped;  she  managed  a  com 
monplace  phrase  and  turned  aside  in  a  trivial  pretext  of 
occupation. 

"  I  am  going  into  Boston  with  Captain  Dunsack  on 
business  connected  with  his  schooners."  The  girl's  grand 
father!  "Very  well."  She  spoke  placidly,  and  with  a 
tempestuous  heart  watched  him  stride  quickly  about  the 
park. 

She  settled  herself  in  a  long  motionless  contemplation, 
fastening  her  mind  upon  the  most  elevated  and  revered 
ideas  conceivable.  She  saw  the  eternal  Tao  flowing  like 
a  great  green  river  of  souls,  smooth  and  mighty  and  re 
sistless;  and  she  willed  that  she  too  might  become  a  part 
of  that  desirable  self-effacement,  safe  in  surrender.  Men 
striving  to  create  a  Tao  for  personal  ends  beat  out  their 
lives  in  vain.  It  was  the  figure  of  the  river  develop- 

[231] 


JAVA    HEAD 

ing,  like  floating  on  a  deliberate  all-powerful  tide  or 
struggling  impotently  against  it. 

Later  a  message  came  up  from  Mrs.  Ammidon  —  she 
hoped  that  Taou  Yuen  would  drive  with  her  that  after 
noon.  She  dressed  with  the  most  particular  care,  in 
blue  and  dark  greens,  her  shoulders  thick  with  embroidered 
garlands  and  silver  shou,  her  piled  hair  ornamented  in 
glittering  silver  leaves  and  garnets. 

She  went  down  when  she  heard  the  horses  on  the  street 
below  but  the  barouche  was  empty  except  for  the  coach 
man.  "  Mrs.  Ammidon  left  a  half  hour  ago,"  a  servant 
told  her;  "  and  sent  the  carriage  back  for  you."  They 
moved  forward,  going,  she  saw,  into  a  part  of  the  town 
where  they  seldom  drove  —  the  narrow  crowded  way  by 
the  wharves  —  and,  turning  shortly  into  a  street  that 
ended  abruptly  at  the  water,  drew  up  before  a  dingy  house 
on  her  right. 

The  door  was  open,  and  they  waited,  confident  that 
Mrs.  Ammidon  would  hear  the  clatter  of  hoofs  and  come 
out;  but  a  far  different  appeared.  She  gazed  for  a  silent 
space  at  Taou  Yuen  seated  above  her,  as  if  confused  by 
the  glittering  magnificence.  It  was  probable  that  Gerrit's 
brother's  wife  had  come  there  on  an  errand  of  charity 
for  the  woman  was  poor,  dingy  like  the  house,  with  a 
face  drawn  by  suffering  and  material  struggle. 

"  Of  course  you're  Captain  Ammidon's  wife,"  she  said; 
"  and  you  are  here  after  Mrs.  William  Ammidon.  Well, 
she's  gone;  but  she  left  a  message  for  you.  She  will  be 
at  Henry  Whipple's,  the  bookseller.  After  she  saw  Nettie 
she  went  right  off  to  send  her  some  things;  wouldn't 
wait  for  the  carriage.  A  kind-hearted  determined  body." 

[232] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Taou  Yuen  leaned  out  to  command  the  coachman  to 
drive  on;  but  the  other,  plainly  bent  on  making  the  most 
of  a  rare  opportunity  for  such  a  conversation,  continued 
talking  in  her  low  resigned  way. 

"  I  was  glad  to  have  her  too;  Nettie  gets  pretty  fretful 
up  there  with  nobody  but  me,  really.  She  hasn't  been  so 
well,  either,  since — "  here  she  stopped  abruptly,  recom 
menced.  "  I  like  to  see  a  person  myself  of  Mrs.  Am- 
midon's  kind.  I've  been  alone  all  day;  father's  gone  to 
Boston  and  Edward  away  I  don't  know  where." 

Taou  Yuen's  curiosity  to  see  Nettie  Vollar  returned  in 
finitely  multiplied;  here,  miraculously,  was  an  oppor 
tunity  for  her  tp  study  the  woman  who  was  beyond  any 
doubt  an  important  part  of  Gerrit's  past,  present  —  it 
might  be,  his  future.  The  men  were  gone.  .  .  .  She  got 
resolutely  down  from  the  barouche.  "  Take  me  up  to 
your  daughter,"  she  directed  quietly. 

"  Why,  that's  very  kind,  but  I  don't  know  —  Yes,  cer 
tainly.  Mind  these  stairs  with  your  satin  skirts;  I  don't 
always  get  around  to  the  whole  house." 

Taou  Yuen  saw  at  once  that  Nettie  Vollar  was  far 
sicker  than  she  had  realized:  her  head  lay  on  the  pillow 
absolutely  spent,  her  brow  damply  plastered  with  hair 
and  her  eyes  enlarged  and  dull.  Taou  Yuen  drew  a  chair 
forward  and  sat  beside  a  table  with  a  glass  bowl  of  small 
dark  pills  which  from  a  just  perceptible  odor  she  recog 
nized  as  opium.  She  looked  intently,  coldly,  at  the  pros 
trate  figure.  A  flush  like  match  flames  burned  in  Nettie 
Vollar's  cheeks,  and  she  said  in  a  voice  at  once  weak  and 
sharp : 

"You're  her!" 

[233] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Taou  Yuen  nodded  slowly,  disdainfully. 

"Oh,  how  could  he!"  the  other  exclaimed  in  what 
sounded  like  the  thin  echo  of  a  passionate  cry.  "  I  knew 
you  were  Chinese,  but  I  never  realized  it  till  this  min 
ute." 

As  Gerrit  Ammidon's  wife  had  feared  she  was  totally 
unable  to  judge  a  single  quality  or  feature  of  the  girl  be 
fore  her.  She  looked  exactly  like  all  the  others  she  had 
seen  in  Salem:  in  order  to  realize  her  she  needed  Gerrit's 
eyes,  Gerrit's  birth.  Then  one  fact  crept  insidiously  into 
her  consciousness  —  here,  in  a  way,  was  another  being 
who  had  Gerrit  Ammidon's  childlike  simplicity.  That 
was  the  most  terrifying  discovery  she  could  have  made. 
Taou  Yuen  felt  the  return  of  the  hateful  irresistible  emo 
tions  which  had  destroyed  her  self-control.  She  wanted  to 
hurt  Nettie  Vollar  in  every  possible  way,  to  mock  her 
with  the  fact  that  she  had  lost  Gerrit  perhaps  never  to 
see  him  again;  she  wanted  to  tell  her  that  she,  Taou  Yuen, 
entirely  understood  her  hopes,  efforts,  and  that  they  were 
vain. 

An  utter  self-loathing  possessed  her  at  the  same  time,  a 
feeling  of  imminent  danger  as  if  she  were  walking  with 
willfully  shut  eyes  on  the  edge  of  a  precipice  above  a 
black  fatal  void.  Not  a  trace  of  this  appeared  on  her 
schooled  countenance;  and  once  more  she  completely  re 
strained  any  defiling  speech.  She  deliberately  shifted 
her  point  of  view  to  another  possible  aspect  of  all  that 
confronted  her  —  it  might  be  that  this  woman  was  a 
specter,  a  kwei,  bent  on  Gerrit's  destruction.  Such  a 
thing  often  happened.  How  much  better  if  Nettie  Vollar 
had  been  killed!  She  studied  her  with  a  renewed  in- 

[234] 


JAVA    HEAD 

terest  —  a  fresh  question.  Perhaps  the  other  would  die  as 
it  was.  She  was  extremely  weak;  her  spirit,  Taou  Yuen 
saw,  lay  listlessly  in  a  listless  body.  Nettie  Vollar  slightly 
moved  her  injured  arm,  and  that  little  effort  exhausted 
her  for  a  moment;  her  eyes  closed,  her  face  was  as  white 
as  salt. 

A  further,  almost  philosophical,  consideration  engaged 
Taou  Yuen's  mind  —  this  extraordinary  occasion,  her 
being  with  the  other  alone,  Nettie  Vollar's  fragility,  were, 
it  might  be,  all  a  part  of  the  working  of  the  righteous 
Yang.  In  the  light  of  this,  then,  she  had  been  brought 
here  for  a  purpose  ...  the  ending  of  a  menace  to  her 
husband.  She  hesitated  for  a  breath  —  if  it  were  the 
opposite  malignant  Yin  there  was  no  bottom  to  the  in 
famy  into  which  she  might  fall.  It  was  a  tremendous 
question. 

The  actual  execution  of  the  practical  suggestion,  from 
either  source,  was  extremely  easy;  she  had  but  to  lean 
forward,  draw  her  heavy  sleeve  across  the  strained  face, 
hold  it  there  for  a  little,  and  Nettie  Vollar  would  have 
died  of  —  of  any  one  of  a  number  of  reasonable  causes. 
She,  Taou  Yuen,  would  call,  politely  distressed,  for  the 
mother  .  .  .  very  regrettable. 

Gerrit  free  — 

Perhaps. 

She  had  no  shrinking  from  the  act  itself,  nothing  that 
might  have  been  called  pity,  a  few  more  or  less  years  in 
a  single  life  were  beneath  serious  consideration;  it  was 
the  lives  to  come,  the  lingering  doubt  of  which  power  led 
her  on,  which  restrained  and  filled  her  mind.  A  flicker 
of  rage  darted  through  her  calm  questioning;  her  mental 

[235] 


JAVA    HEAD 

processes  again  faded.  With  her  right  arm  across  the 
supine  body  and  enveloping  the  face  in  her  left  sleeve  a 
single  twist  and  Nettie  Vollar  would  choke  in  a  cloud  of 
thick  satin  made  gay  with  unfading  flowers  and  the 
embroidered  symbol  of  long  life.  She  felt  her  body  grow 
rigid  with  purpose  when  the  sound  of  a  footfall  below 
held  her  motionless  in  an  unreasoning  dread. 

It  was  not  heavy,  yet  she  was  certain  that  it  was  not 
the  woman's.  A  blur  of  voices  drifted  up  to  her,  the 
dejected  feminine  tone  and  a  thin  querulous  demand, 
surprise.  Taou  Yuen  turned  cold  as  stone:  the  sensa 
tion  of  oppressive  danger  increased  until  it  seemed  as  if 
she,  and  not  Nettie  Vollar,  were  strangling.  There  was 
a  profound  stillness,  then  a  shuffling  tread  on  the  stair,  and 
Edward  Dunsack  entered,  entered  but  stood  without  ad 
vancing,  his  back  against  a  closed  door. 

Even  since  yesterday  he  had  noticeably  wasted,  there 
were  muscles  of  his  face  that  twitched  continuously;  his 
hands,  it  seemed  to  her,  writhed  like  worms.  He  said 
nothing,  but  stared  at  her  with  a  fixed  glittering  vision; 
all  his  one  time  worship  —  it  had  been  so  much  —  was 
devoured  in  the  hatred  born  in  the  Ammidon  library. 
Frozen  with  apprehension  she  sat  without  movement;  her 
face,  she  felt,  as  still  as  a  lacquered  mask. 

To  her  astonishment  —  she  had  forgotten  Nettie  Vollar's 
existence  —  a  shaken  voice  from  the  bed  demanded : 

"  Uncle  Edward,  what's  come  over  you !  Don't  you  see 
Mrs.  Ammidon !  Oh  — "  her  speech  rose  in  a  choked  ex 
clamation.  Edward  Dunsack  had  turned  the  key  and  was 
crossing  the  room  with  a  dark  twisted  face,  his  eyes 
stark  and  demented.  Taou  Yuen,  swung  round  toward 

[236] 


JAVA    HEAD 

the  advancing  figure,  heard  a  long  fluttering  breath  be 
hind  her.  Perhaps  Nettie  Vollar  had  died  of  fright. 
The  terror  in  her  own  brain  dried  up  before  an  over 
whelming  realization  —  she  had  betrayed  herself  to  the 
principle  of  evil.  She  was  lost.  Her  thoughts  were  at 
once  incredibly  rapid  and  entirely  vivid,  logical:  Edward 
Dunsack,  ruined,  in  China;  herself  blinded,  confused,  de 
stroyed  in  America.  Yesterday  she  had  held  him  power 
less  with  the  mere  potency  of  her  righteousness;  but  now 
she  had  no  strength. 

There  was  a  loathsome  murmur  from  his  dusty  lips. 
He  intended  to  kill  her,  to  mar  and  spoil  her  throat,  a 
degradation  forbidden  by  Confucius,  an  eternal  disfigure 
ment.  This  filled  her  with  a  renewed  energy  of  horror. 
.  .  .  Here  there  was  none  but  a  feeble  woman  to  hear  her 
if  she  called.  She  rose  mechanically,  a  hand  on  the  table; 
Taou  Yuen  saw  Nettie  Vollar's  deathly  pallid  face  rolled 
awkwardly  from  the  pillow,  and  the  bowl  of  opium.  There 
were  twenty  or  more  pills.  Without  hesitation,  even  with 
a  sense  of  relief,  she  swept  the  contents  of  the  bowl  into 
her  palm.  The  effort  of  swallowing  so  many  hard  parti 
cles  was  almost  convulsive  and  followed  with  a  nauseous 
spasm. 

Exhausted  by  mental  effort  she  sank  into  a  chair  and 
a  dullness  like  smoke  settled  over  her.  The  figure  of 
Edward  Dunsack  retreated  to  an  infinite  distance.  The 
smoke  moved  in  a  great  steady  volume  —  the  eternal  and 
changeless  Tao,  without  labor  or  desires,  without.  .  .  . 
Hatred  requited  with  virtue  .  .  .  attracting  all  honor  — 
mounting  higher  and  higher  from  the  consuming  passions, 
the  seething  black  lives  of  her  immeasurable  fall. 
[237] 


ALTHOUGH  the  late  afternoon  was  at  an  hour 
when  Derby  Street  should  have  been  filled  by  an 
half-idle  throng  in  the  slackening  of  the  day's 
waterside  employments  Roger  Brevard  found  it  noticeably 
empty.     In  this  he  suddenly  recognized  that  the  street 
was   like   the   countingroom   of  the   Mongolian  Marine 
Insurance  Company,  the  heart  of  Salem 's  greatness  —  they 
were  weaker,  stilled  in  a  decline  that  yet  was  not  evident 
in  the  impressive  body  of  the  town. 

When  he  had  first  taken  charge  of  this  branch  both 
Salem  and  it  had  been  of  sufficient  moment  to  attract  him 
from  New  York;  the  company  was  insuring  Boston  and 
New  York  vessels;  the  captains  had  thronged  its  broad 
window  commanding  St.  Peters  and  Essex  Streets.  Now 
only  an  occasional  shipmaster,  holding  the  old  traditions 
and  habits  or  else  retired,  sat  in  the  comfortable  armchairs 
with  leather  cushions  drawn  up  at  the  coal  hearth  or  ex 
pansive  in  white  through  the  summer. 

His  mind  shifted  to  a  consideration  of  these  facts  in  re 
lation  to  himself  —  whether  the  same  thing  overtaking  the 
place  and  marine  insurance  had  not  settled  upon  him  too 
—  as  he  made  his  way  from  Central  Wharf,  where  he  had 
vainly  gone  for  prospective  business.  His  inquiry  was 
reaching  a  depressing  certainty  when,  passing  and  gazing 
down  Hardy  Street,  he  saw  the  Ammidon  barouche  stand 
ing  in  front  of  the  Dunsacks'. 

[238] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Roger  Brevard  stopped:  the  Ammidon  men,  he  knew, 
seldom  drove  about  Salem.  He  had  heard  of  Nettie  Vol- 
lar's  accident  and  came  to  the  conclusion  that  Rhoda  was 
within.  If  this  were  so,  her  visit,  limited  to  a  charitable 
impulse,  would  be  short;  and  thinking  of  the  pleasure  of 
driving  with  her  he  turned  into  the  side  way.  As  he  ap 
proached,  the  coachman  met  him  with  an  evident  impa 
tience. 

"  No,  sir,"  he  replied  to  Brevard's  inquiry.  "  But  we 
were  to  get  Mrs.  Ammidon  at  the  bookstore.  Mrs.  Captain 
Gerrit  called  here  for  her,  but  she  went  inside  unex 
pected.  All  of  an  hour  ago.  I  don't  like  to  ask  for  the 
lady,  but  what  may  be  said  later  I  can't  think." 

He  had  scarcely  finished  speaking  when  a  woman  whom 
Brevard  recognized  as  Kate  Vollar  appeared  at  the  door. 
"  Oh,  Mr.  Brevard!  "  she  exclaimed  with  an  unnaturally 
pallid  and  apprehensive  face.  "  I'm  glad  to  find  you. 
Please  come  upstairs  with  me.  Why  I  don't  know  but 
I'm  all  in  a  tremble.  Mrs.  Ammidon  went  to  see  Nettie, 
then  Edward  came  in,  and  when  he  heard  who  was 
there  he  acted  as  if  he  were  struck  dumb  and  went  up 
like  a  person  afflicted.  I  waited  the  longest  while  and 
then  followed  them  and  knocked.  Why  the  door  was  shut 
I'd  never  tell  you.  But  they  didn't  answer,  any  of 
them,"  she  declared  with  clasped  straining  hands. 
"  Three  in  the  room  and  not  a  sound.  Please  — "  her 
voice  was  suddenly  suffocated  by  dread. 

"  Certainly.  Quarles,"  he  addressed  the  coachman, 
"  I'll  get  you  to  come  along.  If  there  is  a  lock  to  break 
it  will  need  a  heavier  shoulder  than  mine." 

Mounting  the  narrow  somber  stair,  followed  by  the  man 
[239] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  Kate  Vollar,  he  wondered  vainly  what  might  have 
happened.  Obscurely  some  of  the  woman's  fear  was 
communicated  to  him.  Brevard  knocked  abruptly  on  the 
door  indicated  but  there  was  no  answering  voice  or  move 
ment.  He  tried  the  latch:  as  Nettie's  mother  had  found, 
it  was  fastened. 

"  Quarles,"  Roger  Brevard  said  curtly. 

The  coachman  stepped  forward,  braced  himself  for  the 
shove  he  directed  against  the  wooden  barrier,  and  the 
door  swept  splintering  inward.  Roger  advanced  first  and 
a  grim  confusion  touched  him  with  cold  horror.  Taou 
Yuen  was  half  seated  and  half  lying  across  a  table  beside 
the  bed ;  he  couldn't  see  her  face,  but  her  body  was  utterly 
lax.  Nettie  Vollar,  too,  was  in  a  dreadful  waxen  simil 
itude  of  death,  with  lead  colored  lips  and  fixed  sightless 
eyes.  A  slight  extraordinary  sound  rose  behind  him,  and 
whirling,  Brevard  discovered  that  it  was  Edward  Dun- 
sack  giggling.  He  was  silent  immediately  under  the 
other's  scrutiny,  and  an  expression  of  stubborn  and  mali 
cious  caution  pinched  his  wasted  sardonic  countenance. 

Brevard  turned  to  the  greater  necessity  of  the  women, 
and  moved  Taou  Yuen  so  that  he  could  see  her  features. 
It  was  evident  that  she  was  not,  as  he  had  first  thought, 
dead;  her  breathing  was  slow  and  deep  and  harsh,  her 
pulse  deliberate  and  full;  she  was  warm,  too,  but  her 
face  was  suffused  by  an  unnatural  blueness  and  the  pupils 
of  her  inert  eyes  were  barely  discernible.  He  shook  her 
with  an  unceremonious  vigor,  but  there  was  no  answering 
energy;  she  fell  across  his  arm  in  a  sheer  weight  of 
satin-covered  body.  He  moved  back  in  a  momentary  un 
controllable  repulsion  when  Kate  Vollar  threw  herself  past 

[240] 


JAVA    HEAD 

him  onto  the  bed.  "  Nettie!  "  she  cried,  "  Nettie!  Net 
tie  1  "  Brevard  was  chilled  by  the  possibility  of  an  un 
utterable  tragedy,  when  with  a  faint  suffusion  of  color  the 
girl  gave  a  gasping  sigh.  Her  voice  stirred  in  a  terror- 
shaken  whisper: 

"Uncle  Edward,  don't!  Why  — don't.  Oh!"  She 
pressed  her  face  with  a  long  shudder  into  the  pillow. 
"  Whatever  was  it — ?  "  her  mother  began  wildly.  Bre 
vard  caught  her  shoulder.  "Not  now,"  he  directed; 
"  you'll  come  downstairs  with  me.  We  must  have  help  at 
once  and  your  daughter  quiet." 

However  he  was  in  a  quandary  —  he  couldn't  trust  the 
woman  here,  he  would  have  to  go  immediately  for  assist 
ance,  and  yet  it  was  impossible  to  leave  Nettie  Vollar  and 
Gerrit's  wife  alone.  "  You  will  have  to  wait  in  the 
room,"  he  decided,  turning  to  Quarles. 

Edward  Dunsack  was  wavering  against  a  wall ;  Brevard 
went  swiftly  up  to  him.  "  We'll  need  you,"  he  said 
shortly.  Dunsack  maintained  his  silence  and  air  of  stub 
born  cunning;  but,  when  the  other  man  clasped  his  in 
credibly  thin  arm,  he  went  willingly  followed  by  Kate 
Vollar  below.  There  he  sat  obediently,  his  judicious 
detachment  broken  by  a  repetition  of  the  thin  shocking 
snigger. 

"  You  must  be  responsible  for  your  brother,"  Roger 
Brevard  told  the  quivering  woman.  "  I'll  be  back  imme 
diately.  Now  that  you  know  Nettie's  safe  you  must 
control  yourself.  No  one  should  go  up  —  keep  everybody 
out  —  till  you  hear  from  me  or  the  doctor  or  Captain 
Ammidon." 

What  an  inexplicable  accident  or  crime,  he  thought,  hur- 
[241] 


JAVA    HEAD 

riedly  approaching  the  countinghouse  of  Ammidon,  Am- 
midon  and  Saltonstone,  the  first  and  nearest  of  the  places 
to  which  he  must  go.  He  could  remember  no  mark  of 
what  had  overcome  Taou  Yuen.  How  was  Dunsack,  who 
was  now  clearly  demented,  implicated?  What  racking 
thing  had  Nettie  Vollar  seen  ? 

In  the  subsequent  exclamatory  rush,  even  on  the  fol 
lowing  morning  when  Roger  Brevard  learned  that  — 
poisoned  by  opium  undoubtedly  taken  by  herself  —  Ger- 
rit  Ammidon's  wife  had  died  without  regaining  conscious 
ness,  the  greater  part  of  the  tragedy  became  little  clearer. 
No  statement  could  be  had  from  Edward  Dunsack  other 
than  a  meaningless  array  of  precautionary  phrases;  and 
returning  in  a  sliding  gait  toward  Hardy  Street  he  was 
put  under  a  temporary  restraint. 

Nettie  Vollar,  Brevard  heard,  had  relapsed  from  her 
injury  into  a  second  critical  collapse.  Yet,  he  told  him 
self,  entering  the  room  that  was  his  home  in  Mrs.  Cane's 
large  square  house  on  Chestnut  Street,  that  the  Manchu 
still  absorbed  his  speculations. 

It  was  a  pleasant  room  and  a  pleasant  house  with  a  dig 
nified  portico;  and  his  tall  windows,  back  on  the  right  of 
the  second  floor,  opened  on  the  length  of  the  Napiers'  gar 
den.  Brevard  sat  looking  out  over  a  dim  leanness  of 
evening  and  tried  to  discipline  his  thoughts  into  order  and 
coherence.  Any  dignity  of  death  had  been  soiled  by  the 
ugly  mystery  of  the  aspects  surrounding  the  end  of  Taou 
Yuen. 

He  had  liked  her  extremely  well,  agreeing  with  Rhoda 
Ammidon  that,  probably,  they  had  never  been  permitted 
to  know  a  more  aristocratic  breeding  or  greater  degrees  of 

[242] 


JAVA    HEAD 

purely  worldly  and  mental  and  personal  charm  than  those 
of  Gerrit's  wife. 

His  mind  grew  more  philosophical  and  a  perception, 
yet  without  base  in  facts,  convinced  him  that  Taou  Yuen 
had  been  killed  by  America.  It  was  a  fantastic  thought, 
and  he  attempted  to  dismiss  it,  waiting  for  more  secure 
knowledge,  but  it  persisted.  She  had  been  killed  by  un 
familiar  circumstances,  tradition,  emotions.  In  some 
manner,  but  how  he  was  unable  to  disentangle  from  the 
pressures  of  mere  curiosity  and  conjecture,  Nettie  Vollar 
—  or  rather  Gerrit's  old  passing  affair  with  Nettie  —  had 
entered  into  the  unhappy  occurrence.  After  an  hour's  vain 
search  he  gave  up  all  effort  to  pierce  the  darkness  until  he 
had  actual  knowledge  —  if  he  ever  had,  he  was  forced 
to  add  silently.  It  was  possible  that  the  secret  might  be 
entirely  guarded  from  the  public,  even  from  the  closer  part 
he  had  played  .  and  his  familiarity  with  the  Ammidon 
family. 

He  was  an  inmate  of  their  inner  garden  with  its  lilac 
trees  and  hedged  roses  in  season,  the  pungent  beds  of 
flowers  and  box,  the  moonshade  of  the  poplars.  Roger 
Brevard  turned  from  the  consideration  of  Taou  Yuen  to 
the  even  more  insistent  claim  of  his  increasing  affection 
for  Sidsall.  He  stopped  again  both  to  lament  and  delight 
in  her  youth  —  another  year  and  he  would  have  unhesitat 
ingly  announced  his  feeling  as  love  to  them  all.  It  was 
that,  he  admitted  to  himself  almost  shyly.  The  obvious 
thing  was  for  him  to  wait  through  the  year  or  more 
until  the  Ammidons  would  hear  of  a  proposal  and  then 
urge  his  desire.  .  .  .  He  could  see  her  quite  often  mean 
while. 

[243] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Yes,  that  was  the  sensible  course,  even  in  the  face  of 
his  own  multiplying  years.  They  were  twenty-five  more 
than  Sidsall's;  yet,  he  added  in  self-extenuation,  he  was 
not  definitely  snared  in  middle  age;  he  was  still  elastic  in 
body  and  youthful,  but  for  graying  hair,  in  appearance. 
His  birth  was  eligible  from  every  social  consideration; 
and,  though  he  was  not  rich,  he  had  enough  independently 
to  assure  the  safety  of  his  wife's  future.  This  did  not 
come  entirely,  or  now  even  in  the  larger  part,  from  the 
Mongolian  Marine  Insurance  Company,  but  took  the  form 
of  a  comparatively  small  but  secure  private  income. 

He  paused  to  wonder  if  it  had  not  been  that  latter  fact 
which  had  prevented  his  being  successful  —  successful, 
that  was,  in  William  Ammidon's  meaning  of  the  word. 
He  had  not  made  money  nor  a  position  of  importance 
among  men  of  affairs.  Such  safety,  he  decided,  was  a 
dangerous  possession  judged  by  the  standards  he  was  now 
considering.  A  few  thousand  a  year  for  life  struck  at  the 
root  of  activity.  It  induced  a  critical  detached  attitude 
toward  life,  overemphasized  the  importance  of  the  cut  of  a 
trouser  and  the  validity  of  pedigree.  It  was  a  mistake  to 
dance  noticeably  well. 

Drifting,  together  with  almost  everyone  else,  he  had 
reached  his  present  position,  past  forty,  by  imperceptible 
degrees,  obscurely  influenced  by  the  play  of  what  he  in 
trinsically  was  on  circumstances  or  accident  or  fate. 

Although  he  had  never  done  so  before,  he  compared 
himself  with  Gerrit  Ammidon.  The  other's  refusal  to 
accept  a  partnership  in  the  family  firm  or  command  a 
California  clipper  was  known.  Gerrit  and  himself  were 
alike  in  that  they  apprehended  the  values  of  life  more 

[244] 


JAVA    HEAD 

clearly  than  did  the  ordinary  mind  or  heart.  But,  in 
retaliation,  the  world  they  differed  from  curtly  brushed 
them  aside.  Roger  Brevard  could  not  see  that  they  had 
made  the  least  mark  on  the  callous  normal  cruelty  or  the 
aesthetic  and  spiritual  blindness  of  the  existence  they 
shared.  But  it  was  always  possible  that  something  big 
ger  than  their  grasp  of  justice  or  beauty  was  afoot. 

He  turned  from  the  darkened  prospect  of  the  window 
and  his  thoughts  to  the  room.  Without  a  light  he  removed 
his  formal  street  clothes,  hanging  the  coat  and  waistcoat, 
folding  the  trousers  in  a  drawer,  with  exact  care;  changing 
his  light  boots  for  fiber  slippers  he  set  the  former  in  the 
row  of  footgear  drawn  up  like  a  military  review  against 
the  wall.  Though  it  was  quite  obscure  now,  and  no  one 
would  see  him,  he  paused  to  brush  his  slightly  disarranged 
hair,  before  —  tying  the  cord  of  his  chamber  robe  —  he 
resumed  his  seat. 

The  year,  he  reverted  to  Sidsall,  would  pass;  but,  try 
as  he  might,  he  had  no  feeling  of  security  in  the 
future,  however  near.  It  was  the  present,  this  Sidsall, 
that  filled  him  with  a  tyrannical  and  bitter  longing.  She 
was  unbelievably  beautiful  now.  Against  the  faintness  of 
his  hope,  his  patience,  he  saw  the  whole  slow  process  of 
the  disintegration  of  marine  insurance,  and  with  it  his 
own  fatuous  insensibility  to  the  decline:  that  decline  with 
its  exact  counterpart  in  himself.  Salem  and  he  were  get 
ting  dusty  together. 

He  straightened  up  vigorously  in  his  chair  —  this  would 

never  do.     He  must  wind  up  his  affairs  here  and  return  to 

New  York.     The  tranquil  backwater  had  overpowered  him 

for  a  time;  but,  again  awake,  he  would  strike  out  strongly 

[245] 


JAVA    HEAD 

.  .  .  with  Sidsall.  Endless  doubt  and  hope  fluctuated 
within  him.  Voices  rose  from  the  Napier  garden,  and 
from  a  tree  sounded  the  whirring  of  the  first  locust  he  had 
noticed  that  summer. 

On  a  noon  following  he  saw  the  passage  of  the  three  or 
four  carriages  that  constituted  the  funeral  cortege  of  Taou 
Yuen's  entirely  private  interment.  She  would  be  buried 
of  course  by  Christian  service:  here  were  none  of  the 
elaborate  Confucian  rites  and  ceremonial;  yet  —  from  what 
Taou  Yuen  had  occasionally  indicated  —  Confucius,  Lao- 
tze,  the  Buddha,  were  all  more  alike  than  different;  they 
all  vainly  preached  humility,  purity,  the  subjugation  of  the 
flesh.  He  stopped  later  in  the  Charter  Street  cemetery  and 
found  her  grave,  the  headstone  marked: 

TAOU  YUEN 
A  MANCHURIAN  LADY 

THE   WIFE 
OF 

GERRIT  AMMIDON,  ESQ. 

and  the  dates. 

He  saw,  naturally,  but  little  of  the  Ammidons  —  a 
glimpse  of  Rhoda  in  the  carriage  and  William  on  Charter 
Street;  the  Nautilus,  ready  for  sea,  continued  in  her  berth 
at  Phillips'  Wharf.  Fragments  of  news  came  to  him 
quoted  and  re-quoted,  grotesquely  exaggerated  and 
even  malicious  reports  of  the  tragedy  at  the  Dunsacks'. 
Standing  at  his  high  desk  in  the  countingroom  of  the  Mon 
golian  Marine  Insurance  Company,  Taou  Yuen's  glitter 
ing  passage  through  Salem  already  seemed  to  him  a  fable, 

[246] 


JAVA    HEAD 

a  dream.  Even  Sidsall,  robustly  near  by,  had  an  aspect 
of  unreality  in  the  tender  fabric  of  his  visions.  Captain 
Rendell,  his  spade  beard  at  the  verge  of  filmed  old  eyes, 
who  was  seated  at  the  window,  rose  with  difficulty.  For 
a  moment  he  swayed  on  insecure  legs,  then,  barely  gather 
ing  the  necessary  power,  moved  out  into  the  street. 

Later,  when  Roger  Brevard  was  turning  the  key  on  the 
insurance  company  for  the  day,  Lacy  Saltonstone  stopped 
to  speak  in  her  charming  slow  manner:  "Mother  of 
course  is  in  a  whirl,  with  Captain  Ammidon  about  to 
marry  that  Nettie  Vollar,  since  she  is  recovering  after  all, 
and  our  moving  to  Boston.  .  .  .  You  see  I'm  there  so 
often  it  will  make  really  very  little  difference  to  me. 
Sidsall  is  the  lucky  one,  though  you'd  never  know  it  from 
seeing  her.  ...  I  thought  you'd  have  heard  —  why,  to 
Lausanne,  a  tremendously  impressive  school  for  a  year. 
They  have  promised  her  London  afterward.  I  would  call 
that  a  promise,  but  actually,  Sidsall — ." 

"  Doesn't  she  want  to  go?  "  he  asked  mechanically,  all 
the  emotions  that  had  chimed  through  his  being  sud 
denly  clashing  in  a  discordant  misery.  He  bowed  ab 
sently,  and  hastening  to  his  room  softly  closed  the  door 
and  sat  without  supper,  late  into  the  evening,  lost  in  a 
bitterness  that  continually  poisoned  the  resolutions  formed 
out  of  his  overwhelming  need.  He  was  aghast  at  the 
inner  violence  that  destroyed  the  long  tranquility  of  his 
existence,  the  clenched  hands  and  spoken  words  lost  in 
the  shadows  over  the  Napiers'  garden.  He  wanted  Sidsall 
with  a  breathless  tyranny  infinitely  sharper  than  any  pang 
of  youth:  she  was  life  itself. 

She  didn't  want  to  go,  Lacy  had  made  that  clear;  and 
[247] 


JAVA    HEAD 

he  told  himself  that  her  reluctance  could  only,  must,  pro 
ceed  from  one  cause  —  that  she  cared  for  him.  As  he 
dwelt  on  this,  the  one  alleviating  possibility,  he  became 
certain  of  its  truth.  He  would  find  her  at  once  and  in 
spite  of  Rhoda  and  William  Ammidon  explain  that  his 
whole  hope  lay  in  marrying  her.  With  an  utter  contempt 
at  all  the  small  orderly  habits  which,  he  now  saw,  were 
the  expression  of  a  confirmed  dry  preciseness,  he  left  his 
clothes  in  a  disorderly  heap.  Such  a  feeling  as  Sidsall's 
and  his,  he  repeated  from  the  oppressive  expanse  of  his 
black  walnut  bed,  was  above  ordinary  precautions  and 
observance.  Then,  unable  to  dismiss  the  thought  of  how 
crumpled  his  trousers  would  be  in  the  morning,  oppressed 
by  the  picture  of  the  tumbled  garments,  he  finally  rose  and, 
in  the  dark,  relaid  them  in  the  familiar  smooth  array. 

In  the  morning  his  disturbance  resolved  into  what 
seemed  a  very  decided  and  reasonable  attitude:  He 
would  see  Rhoda  that  day  and  explain  his  feeling  and 
establish  what  rights  and  agreement  he  could.  He  was 
willing  to  admit  that  Sidsall  was,  perhaps,  too  young  for 
an  immediate  decision  so  wide  in  results.  The  ache,  the 
hunger  for  happiness  sharpened  by  vague  premonitions  of 
mischance,  began  again  to  pound  in  his  heart. 

At  the  Ammidons'  it  was  clear  immediately  that  Rhoda's 
manner  toward  him  had  changed:  it  had  become  more 
social,  even  voluble,  and  restrained.  She  conversed 
brightly  about  trivial  happenings,  while  he  sat  listening, 
gravely  silent.  But  it  was  evident  that  she  soon  became 
aware  of  his  difference,  and  her  voice  grew  sharper,  almost 
antagonistic.  They  were  in  the  formal  parlor,  a  sig 
nificant  detail  in  itself,  and  Roger  Brevard  saw  William 

[248] 


JAVA    HEAD 

pass  the  door.  Well,  he  would  soon  have  to  go,  he  must 
speak  about  Sidsall  now.  It  promised  to  be  unexpectedly 
difficult;  but  the  words  were  forming  when  she  came  into 
the  room. 

There  were  faint  shadows  under  her  eyes,  the  unmis 
takable  marks  of  tears.  An  overwhelming  passion  for 
her  choked  at  his  throat.  She  came  directly  up  to  him, 
ignoring  her  mother.  "  Did  you  hear  that  they  want  me 
to  go  away?  "  she  asked.  He  nodded,  "  It's  that  I  came 
to  see  your  mother  about." 

"They  know  I  don't  want  to,"  she  continued;  "I've 
explained  it  to  them  very  carefully." 

"  My  dear  Sidsall,"  Rhoda  Ammidon  cut  in;  "  we  can't 
have  this.  What  Roger  has  to  say  must  be  for  me  and 
your  father."  The  girl  smiled  at  her  and  turned  again 
to  Roger  Brevard.  "  Do  you  want  me  to  go?  " 

"  No!  "  he  cried,  all  his  planning  lost  in  uncontrollable 
rebellion. 

"  Then  I  don't  think  I  shall." 

William  entered  and  stood  at  his  wife's  shoulder. 
"  You  won't  insist,"  Sidsall  faced  them  quietly.  "  Ridicu 
lous,"  her  father  replied.  Brevard  realized  that  he  must 
support  the  girl's  bravery  of  spirit.  How  adorable  she 
was!  But,  before  the  overwhelming  superior  position  of 
the  elder  Ammidons,  their  weight  of  propriety  and  author 
ity,  his  determination  wavered. 

"  To  be  quite  frank,"  the  other  man  proceeded,  "  since 
it  has  been  forced  on  us,  Sidsall  imagines  herself  in  love 
with  you,  Brevard.  I  don't  need  to  remind  you  how 
unsuitable  and  preposterous  that  is.  She's  too  young 
to  know  the  meaning  of  love.  Besides,  my  dear  fellow, 
[249] 


JAVA    HEAD 

you're  a  quarter  century  her  elder.  We  want  Sidsall  to 
go  to  London  like  her  mother,  have  her  cotillions,  before 
she  settles  into  marriage." 

"They  can't  understand,  Roger,"  Sidsall  touched  his 
hand.  "  We're  sorry  to  disappoint  them  — " 

"  You  ought  to  be  made  to  leave  the  room,"  William 
fumed. 

"  That  isn't  necessary,"  Rhoda  told  him.  "  I  am  sure 
Roger  understands  perfectly  how  impossible  it  is.  You 
mustn't  be  hurt,"  she  turned  to  him,  "  if  I  admit  that  we 
have  very  different  plans  ...  at  least  a  man  nearer  Sid- 
sail's  age." 

The  girl  lifted  a  confident  face  to  him.  "  You  want  to 
marry  me,  don't  you?  "  she  asked.  More  than  any  other 
conceivable  joy.  But  he  said  this  silently.  His  courage 
slowly  ebbed  before  the  parental  displeasure  viewing  him 
coldly.  "  Then  — "  Sidsall  paused  expectantly,  a  touch 
of  impatience  even  invaded  her  manner.  "  Please  tell 
them,  Roger." 

"  Why  I  have  to  put  up  with  this  is  beyond  me,"  Wil 
liam  Ammidon  expostulated  with  his  wife.  "  It's  shame 
less." 

Roger  Brevard  winced.  He  tried  to  say  something  about 
hope  and  the  future,  but  it  was  so  weak,  a  palpable  re 
treat,  leaving  Sidsall  alone  and  unsupported,  that  the 
words  perished  unfinished.  The  girl  studied  him,  sud 
denly  startled,  and  her  confidence  ebbed.  He  turned 
away,  crushed  by  convention,  filled  with  shame  and  a 
sense  of  self-betrayal. 

A  stillness  followed  of  unendurable  length,  in  which  he 
found  his  attention  resting  on  the  diversified  shapes  of  the 

[2SO] 


JAVA    HEAD 

East  India  money  in  a  corner  cabinet.  It  was  Sidsall 
who  finally  spoke,  slowly  and  clearly: 

"  Forgive  me." 

He  recognized  that  she  was  addressing  her  mother  and 
father.  From  a  whisper  of  skirts  he  realized  that  she  was 
leaving  the  room.  Without  the  will  necessary  for  a  last 
glimpse  he  stood  with  his  head  bowed  by  an  appalling 
sensation  of  weariness  and  years. 

In  a  flash  of  self -comprehension,  Roger  Brevard  knew 
that  he  would  never,  as  he  had  hoped,  leave  Salem. 
He  was  an  abstemious  man,  one  of  a  family  of  long  lives, 
and  he  would  linger  here,  increasingly  unimportant,  for 
a  great  while,  an  old  man  in  new  epochs,  isolated  among 
strange  people  and  prejudices.  Whatever  the  cause  —  the 
small  safety  or  an  inward  flaw  —  he  had  never  been  part 
of  the  corporate  sweating  humanity  where,  in  the  war  of 
spirit  and  flesh,  the  vital  rewards  and  accomplishments 
were  found. 

Soon  after  he  passed  Gerrit  and  Nettie  Vollar  driving 
in  the  direction  of  the  harbor;  she  was  lying  back  wanly  in 
the  Ammidon  barouche,  but  her  companion's  face  was  set 
directly  ahead,  his  expression  of  general  disdain  strongly 
marked.  A  vigorous  hand,  Roger  noted,  was  clasped 
about  Nettie's  supine  palm.  She  saw  him  standing  on 
the  sidewalk  and  bowed  slightly,  but  the  shipmaster 
plainly  overlooked  him  together  with  the  rest  of  Salem. 

The  end  of  summer  was  imminent  in  a  whirl  of  yellow 
leaves  and  chill  gray  wind.  There  was  a  ringing  of 
bugles  through  the  morning,  the  strains  of  military  quick 
steps,  rhythmic  tramping  feet  and  the  irregular  fulmination 
of  salutes.  That  it  was  already  the  day  of  the  annual 
[251] 


JAVA    HEAD 

Fall  Review  seemed  incredible  to  Roger  Brevard.  He  was 
indifferent  to  the  activities  of  the  Common;  but  when  he 
heard  that  the  Nautilus  was  sailing  in  the  middle  of  the 
afternoon  he  left  his  inconsequential  affairs  for  Phillips' 
Wharf. 

A  small  number  were  waiting  on  the  solid  rock-filled 
reach,  the  wharfinger's  office  at  its  head  and  a  stone  ware 
house  blocking  the  end,  where  the  Nautilus  lay  with  her 
high-steeved  bowsprit  pointing  outward.  The  harbor  was 
slaty,  cold,  and  there  was  a  continuous  slapping  of  small 
waves  on  the  shore.  Darkening  clouds  hung  low  in  the 
west,  out  of  which  the  wind  cut  in  flaws  across  the 
open.  The  town,  so  lately  folded  in  lush  greenery, 
showed  a  dun  lift  of  roofs  and  stripping  branches  tossing 
against  an  ashy  sky. 

Close  beside  Roger  stood  Barzil  Dunsack,  his  beard 
blowing,  with  Kate  Vollar  in  a  bright  red  shawl,  her  skirts 
whipping  uneasily  against  her  father's  legs.  Beyond  were 
the  Ammidons  —  William,  and  Rhoda  in  a  deep  furred 
wrap,  and  their  daughters.  Rhoda  waved  for  him  to  join 
them,  but  he  declined  with  a  gesture  of  acknowledgment. 

The  deck  of  the  Nautilus  was  above  his  vision  but  he 
could  see  most  of  the  stir  of  departure.  The  peremptory 
voice  of  the  mate  rose  from  the  bow,  minor  directions 
were  issued  by  the  second  mate  aft,  a  seaman  was  aloft 
on  the  main-royal  yard  and  another  stood  at  the  stage  ris 
ing  sharply  from  the  wharf.  Gerrit  and  his  wife  had  not 
yet  arrived,  and  the  pilot,  making  a  leisurely  appearance, 
stopped  to  exchange  remarks  with  the  Ammidons.  He 
climbed  on  board  the  ship  and  Roger  could  see  his  head 

[252] 


JAVA    HEAD 

and  shoulders  moving  toward  the  poop  and  mounting  the 
ladder. 

The  wind  grew  higher,  shriller,  every  moment;  it  was 
thrashing  among  the  stays  and  braces;  the  man  aloft,  a 
small  movement  against  the  clouds,  swayed  in  its  force. 
There  was  a  faint  clatter  of  hoofs  from  Derby  Street,  Bre- 
vard  had  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  an  arriving  carriage,  and 
Gerrit,  supporting  Nettie  Ammidon,  advanced  over  the 
wharf.  The  shipmaster  walked  slowly,  the  woman  cling 
ing,  almost  dragging,  at  his  erect  strength.  They  went 
close  by  Roger:  Nettie's  pale  face,  her  large  shining  dark 
eyes,  were  filled  with  placid  surrender.  Her  companion 
spoke  in  a  low  grave  tone,  and  she  looked  up  at  him  in  a 
tired  and  happy  acquiescence. 

The  two  families  joined,  and  there  was  a  confused 
determined  gayety  of  farewell  and  good  wishes.  Out  of  it 
finally  emerged  the  captain  of  the  Nautilus  and  the  slight 
figure  upon  his  arm.  He  wore  a  beaver  hat,  and,  as  they 
mounted  the  stage,  he  was  forced  to  hold  it  on  with  his 
free  hand.  When  the  quarter-deck  was  reached  they  dis 
appeared  into  the  cabin. 

"  Mr.  Broadrick,"  the  pilot  called,  "  you  can  get  in 
those  bow  fasts.  Send  a  hawser  to  the  end  of  the 
wharf;  I'm  going  to  warp  out."  There  was  a  harsh  an 
swering  clatter  as  the  mooring  chain  that  held  the  bow  of 
the  Nautilus  was  secured,  and  a  group  of  sailors  went 
smartly  forward  with  a  hemp  cable  to  the  end  of  the 
wharf's  seaward  thrust.  The  Nautilus  lay  on  the  eastern 
side,  with  the  wind  beating  over  the  starboard  quarter,  and 
there  was  little  difficulty  in  getting  under  way.  Strain 

[253] 


JAVA    HEAD 

was  kept  on  the  stern  and  breast  fasts  while  the  mate 
directed : 

"  Ship  your  capstan  bars." 

The  capstan  turned  and  the  Nautilus  moved  forward 
to  the  beat  of  song. 

"Low  lands,  low  lands,  hurrah,  my  John, 
I  thought  I  heard  the  old  man  say. 
Low  lands,  low  lands,  hurrah,  my  John,  -y 

We'll  get  some  rum 

Hurrah,  my  John. 

Then  shake  her— " 

"  Vast  heaving,"  Mr.  Broadrick  shouted. 

The  intimate  spectators  on  Phillips'  Wharf  moved  out 
with  the  ship.  Gerrit  Ammidon  was  now  visible  on  the 
quarter-deck  with  the  pilot.  He  walked  to  the  port  rail 
ing  aft  and  stood  gazing  somberly  back  at  Salem.  The 
stovepipe  hat  was  not  yet  discarded,  and  the  hand  firmly 
holding  its  brim  resembled  a  final  gesture  of  contempt. 
The  pilot  approached  him,  there  was  a  brief  exchange 
of  words,  and  the  former  sharply  ordered : 

"  Stand  by  to  run  up  your  jib  and  fore-topmast  stay 
sail,  Mr.  Broadrick.  Put  two  good  men  at  the  sheets  and 
see  that  those  sails  don't  slat  to  pieces. 

"  On  the  wharf  there  —  take  that  stern  fast  out  to  the 
last  ringbolt.  Mr.  Second  Mate  ...  get  your  fenders 
aboard."  The  wind  increased  in  a  violence  tipped  with 
stinging  rain.  "  Give  her  the  jib  and  staysail."  She 
heeled  slightly  and  gathered  steerage  way.  Roger  Brevard 
involuntarily  waved  a  parting  salutation.  An  extraor 
dinary  emotion  swept  over  him :  a  ship  bound  to  the  East 

[2S4] 


JAVA    HEAD 

always  stirred  his  imagination  and  sense  of  beauty,  but 
the  departure  of  the  Nautilus  had  a  special  significance. 
It  was  the  beginning,  yes,  and  the  end,  of  almost  the 
whole  sweep  of  human  suffering  and  despair,  of  .longing 
and  hope  and  passion,  and  a  reward. 

"  Let  go  the  stern  fast.     Steady  your  helm  there." 

"  Steady,  sir." 

A  mere  gust  of  song  was  distinguishable  against  the  blast 
of  storm.  Under  the  lee  of  the  stone  warehouse,  on  the 
solidity  of  the  wharf,  the  land,  Roger  Brevard  watched 
the  Nautilus  while  one  by  one  the  topsails  were  sheeted 
home  and  the  yards  mastheaded.  "  A  gale  by  night," 
somebody  said.  The  ship,  driving  with  surprising  speed 
toward  the  open  sea,  was  now  apparently  no  more  than  a 
fragile  shell  on  the  immensity  of  the  stark  horizon. 

The  light  faded :  the  days  were  growing  shorter.  Alone 
Brevard  followed  the  others  moving  away.  Kate  Vol- 
lar's  red  shawl  suddenly  streamed  out  and  was  secured  by 
a  wasted  hand.  Just  that  way,  he  thought,  the  color  and 
vividness  of  his  existence  had  been  withdrawn. 


THE  END 


[255] 


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AUG  04  mi  BEC'fl 


Hergesheimer,  J 
Java  Head. 


PS3515 


J3 
1919 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
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